(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump plans to tout completed sections of his border wall in Texas on Tuesday -- his first public event since encouraging supporters who went on to attack the U.S. Capitol last week.
Trump is set to visit Alamo, Texas, to claim progress on the unfinished wall, in a bid to deflect attention from intense criticism of his behavior and highlight what he believes to be one of his signature accomplishments.
Yet the trip is unlikely to overshadow fallout from last Wednesday’s riot, which left five dead, spurred calls for Trump’s resignation or ouster, led to his ban from Twitter and set in motion U.S. House plans to impeach him again.
Trump has refused to step down, and Vice President Mike Pence signaled Monday he’ll spurn demands to immediately oust Trump, as the two met and agreed to work together for the remainder of the term, according to a senior administration official.
It was the first time Trump and Pence had spoken since the president’s supporters stormed the Capitol while Pence was presiding over formal affirmation of their re-election defeat, according to two people familiar with the matter. Trump had demanded that Pence overturn the election result in his favor but Pence defied the president, creating a rift between the two men.
Wolf Quits
Trump will make the trip without one of the officials who has been leading a frenzied push to build more sections of the barrier in Trump’s final weeks in office. Chad Wolf, the acting secretary of Homeland Security, resigned Monday, citing “recent events” including an ongoing court battle over his eligibility for the position. He did not specify whether the riot was a factor, and his statement lauded “strengthened border security” without mentioning the wall specifically.
Trump campaigned in 2016 with a promise to construct a wall along the southern border of the U.S., and that he’d make Mexico pay for it. Mexico did not pay. The administration has built about 452 miles, though much of that has included replacing existing barriers. Trump financed the project in part by redirecting military spending.
Trump has routinely boasted about it, including in his comments to supporters shortly before the march to Capitol Hill began. “Remember, the wall, they said it could never be done,” he said Wednesday. He told the crowd “caravans” would illegally cross into the U.S. under President-elect Joe Biden, without citing any evidence of that.
“They want to come in again and rip off our country. Can’t let it happen,” Trump said. He made similar warnings about the midterm elections in 2018.
Trump was banned from Twitter for statements that followed the riot, which Twitter said may have been interpreted as a blessing for his supporters to disrupt Biden’s inauguration.
Alamo Symbolism
Trump’s supporters may see symbolism in the name of the president’s destination in Texas, though the White House says there’s no hidden message.
The city of Alamo shares a name with the historic site 200 miles north where some 200 revolutionaries held off a much larger force led by the Mexican leader Antonio Santa Anna for 13 days in February and March 1836. The battle ended with the garrison being annihilated but it helped inspire the Texans to defeat the Mexican army about a month later.
Trump has repeatedly urged his supporters to “fight” the results of the election, telling them on Wednesday before the attack on the Capitol that “we fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”
Representative Vicente Gonzalez, a Texas Democrat, called on elected officials to boycott Trump’s visit. “This is a time for good ol’ South Texas-American pride to beam into our communities and to not allow ourselves to be used like an old rag by a modern day traitor,” Gonzalez said in a statement.
The Southern Poverty Law Center called on Trump to scrap the trip, saying people living along the border have been subject to violence inspired by Trump’s rhetoric.
“Rather than addressing his own culpability in the insurrection at our nation’s Capitol last week, Trump is seeking to divert attention by heading to the symbolic seat of his racist immigration agenda,” Efrén Olivares, deputy legal director of the center’s Immigrant Justice Project, said in a statement.