Trump Tells Child at White House Easter Egg Roll: The Wall Is ‘Being Built Now’

President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump greet children during the annual White House Easter Egg Roll on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, on April 22, 2019. (Andrew Harnik/AP Photo)

President Donald Trump assured a child on April 22 that the border wall is being built.

During the annual White House Easter Egg Roll, a child told Trump to “keep building it,” reported The Washington Examiner.

“Oh, it’s happening,” Trump told the child on the South Lawn. “It’s being built now.”

He made the remarks to the child after speaking with children who were making cards.

“Can you believe that? He’s going to be a conservative some day!” Trump said of the child.

At the start of the Easter Egg Roll, Trump also highlighted the U.S. economy’s strength.

“Our country is doing fantastically well,” he stated. “Probably the best it’s ever done economically. We’re setting records on stock markets. We’re setting records with jobs. Unemployment numbers are the lowest they’ve ever been, 50 years in many groups.”

President Donald Trump with first lady Melania Trump, walk behind the Rev. James R. Harlan, right, as they arrive for Easter services at Episcopal Church of Bethesda-by-the-Sea in Palm Beach, Fla., on April 21, 2019. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP Photo)

In February, the president declared a national emergency to bypass Congress and obtain funding to build the wall.

Before that, a standoff between Trump and Congress ensued, leading to a government shutdown. During the shutdown, he said he heard from government workers to stand his ground to fund the wall.

“Many of those people that won’t be receiving a paycheck, many of those people agree 100 percent with what I’m doing,” Trump told reporters at the time. He also said many “people that you think are upset—and certainly they’re not thrilled—but they say, ‘Sir, do the right thing. We need border security.’ And these are people that won’t be getting paid.”

Meanwhile, Trump visited the border wall in Calexico, California, saying that people in San Diego were “begging me for a wall,” NBC San Diego reported in early April.

President Donald Trump blows the whistle to start a race during the annual White House Easter Egg Roll on the South Lawn of the White House, in Washington, on April 22, 2019. (Andrew Harnik/AP Photo)

“We’re very appreciative of this wall. These men and women out here in the area of two miles were experiencing a high number of assaults and use-of-force incidents. This was prior to this wall being built,” El Centro Sector CBP Chief Gloria Chavez told the news outlet.

He said the new design allows agents to see through to the other side.

“We can see the adversary, we can see the threat,” she said, adding that agents frequently have rocks and other items thrown at them by migrants on a day-to-day basis. Since the new fence was set up, those assaults have mostly stopped.

Trump added, “If you want to climb that—it’s pretty sharp up top, too— If you want to climb that, you deserve whatever you can get.”

In late March, Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan said he would push ahead with plans to transfer $1 billion to help fund the wall on U.S. border with Mexico, even as he acknowledged a likely backlash from Congress.

Mexico's federal police stand guard at the US-Mexico border fence as President Donald Trump visits Calexico, California (Guillermo Arias/AFP/Getty Images)

“There are going to be consequences. I understand the position of the committees. I also have a standing legal order from the commander-in-chief,” he said at the time, according to Reuters.

It came after the House failed to override Trump’s first veto of the “national emergency” he declared last month to build a U.S.-Mexico border wall that Congress has not funded.

Reuters contributed to this report.