Former President Donald Trump sparred with CNN moderator Kaitlan Collins over the facts related to just how much of the U.S.-Mexico border wall was built during his administration at Wednesday night’s town hall.
According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection figures, the Trump administration had built 458 miles of new primary and secondary border wall as of January 2021. This included replacing “dilapidated and outdated” sections and locations where “no barriers previously existed.”
These segments of the wall are located in the San Diego, El Centro, Yuma, Tucson, El Paso, Del Rio, and Rio Grande Valley sectors, according to a CBP document shared by the Trump campaign following the town hall.
At the first major televised event of Trump’s 2024 campaign, the former Republican president took questions from Collins and an audience of Republicans and undeclared voters who intend to vote in the GOP primary.
A frequent critic of the network, Trump said on Truth Social a day earlier that the interview may usher in a “new and vibrant CNN, with no more fake news, or it could turn into a disaster for all, including me.”
Collins, who throughout the night had been interjecting with contradictions to Trump’s remarks, kept insisting that his administration only built around 52 miles of border wall. In fact, 52 miles of new primary wall were constructed “in locations where no barriers previously existed,” according to CBP. However, 351 miles of new primary wall were also built “in place of dilapidated and/or outdates designs.”
Collins, who appeared not to want to concede this point, insisted that meant the former president couldn’t claim that “hundreds of miles” were built.
The CBP figures reveal the argument to be splitting hairs, leaving the audience and pundits to choose who they think was right based on how they define the word “new” in the context of rebuilding segments of dilapidated “walls” that border crossers, as Trump pointed out, could simply step over.
This comes as the U.S. border crisis reaches a potential inflection point, with thousands already pouring across the border and thousands more waiting for an opportunity to cross with Title 42 set to end on May 11. Title 42 is a pandemic-era public health measure that allowed border authorities to rapidly expel illegal border crossers to Mexico in the name of mitigating infection risks.
Speaking about this issue, Trump highlighted his success in building “hundreds of miles” of border wall.
According to FactCheck.org, “the Trump administration has built hundreds of miles of border fencing, more than under any other president in American history.”
The organization stated in a 2020 article that most of the wall constructed at that time was replacing existing barriers not fit for purpose. The article noted that a Trump administration official testified in 2018 that 316 miles of new barriers would be built “in addition to what is there now.” It stated that only 40 miles of new fencing was built at that time but that U.S. Customs and Border Protection had replaced nearly 200 miles of vehicle barriers with 30-foot high steel bollards that included lighting and other technology.
The campaign event, held at St. Amselm College in New Hampshire, covered a broad range of topics. At the start of the hourlong town hall, Collins allowed Trump time to respond but as the event went on, she began to interject regularly, particularly when Trump was addressing important subjects like the 2020 elections or Jan. 6, 2021.
At times, the audience seemed to express their amusement and frustration with Collins’s handling of the interview, as the pair had some heated exchanges as they disagreed on certain topics, such as the classified documents discovered at the homes and offices of Trump, President Joe Biden, and former Vice President Mike Pence.
