Trump Declares "Our Country Is Full" During Border Visit
TEXT: LET'S GET AFTER IT.</s>CUOMO: All right, we got a fact-check for you. We're going to do the Border Edition because there is so much BS going on about what the truth is at the Border. We have the perfect person to do it. Daniel Dale, Washington Bureau Chief for the Toronto Star makes his business checking the President. All right, first one, I want to - I have a lot I want to get through. Don't rush, but rush. Here's the first piece of sound. The President saying, "No more. America's full."</s>TRUMP: The system is full, can't take you anymore. Whether it's asylum, whether it's anything you want, it's illegal immigration, can't take you anymore. We can't take you. Our country is full. Our area is full. The sector is full.</s>CUOMO: Now, he can't just undo asylum, can't do it by himself. But what about the basic premise, too many people?</s>DANIEL DALE, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, TORONTO STAR: Well this is one of those cases where Trump takes a point that could arguably be considered reasonable and turns it into something absurd. So, there has been a significant increase in the number of unaccompanied minors--</s>CUOMO: Yes.</s>DALE: --and families seeking asylum, as you point out, you know, nightly--</s>CUOMO: Crisis.</s>DALE: --on your - on your show. And so, the system is strained. Facilities are strained. The--</s>CUOMO: Overwhelmed.</s>DALE: --transportation ability is strained. So, that's a reasonable point. But - but, come on. Our country is full? You know, America is not full. There is room for people once they make it through the asylum process.</s>CUOMO: In fact, people would say we need people. You got to keep having babies so you keep expanding. Otherwise, you wind up like those European countries. They are dealing with a diminishment of their potential and human gain. All right, let's do the next one, all right? This is about drugs that are coming into the country. Here's what his supposition is about the Border.</s>TRUMP: The number of people and the number or the amount of drugs, human trafficking. All over the world, human trafficking, a terrible thing. And they come into the areas of the Border where you don't have the wall. They don't come through your points of entry. They come into areas where you don't have the wall.</s>CUOMO: The reality?</s>DALE: It is simply false that human trafficking victims do not come through legal ports. I talked to six experts in human trafficking who said that the majority of the - the clients that they see did come through legal ports. And that's because they're not tied up, you know, bound and - and taped, like Trump has repeatedly said. More often, they are deceived or coerced into coming into this country. They believe they have a good job waiting for them, so they don't need to be, you know, ferried through the desert in the back of a - of a van, like Trump says. Rather they walk through often on fraudulently obtained visas. The International Organization for Migration, the U.N. agency says that 80 percent of trafficking victims have a journey that involves a trip through a legal port, so this is simply false.</s>CUOMO: And those numbers are relatively small. And the number of drugs seized, at least 80 percent of all the different drug categories are taken at the ports of entry, not across on foot. And if you look at the - the number of criminal apprehensions, I'll put it online again on my Twitter feed during the show, you'll see that number has been going down. The only spiking situation is kids and families. All right, next one, let's do Mexico apprehensions. Listen.</s>TRUMP: I want to also thank Mexico, because Mexico - and I'm totally willing to close the Border. But Mexico, over the last four days, has done more than they've ever done. We were talking about that before, Kevin. They are apprehending people now by the thousands.</s>CUOMO: Yes. What does Mexico say?</s>DALE: So, the Mexican Foreign Minister did a press conference and said basically that he had no idea what Trump was talking about.</s>CUOMO: It's because he's making it up.</s>DALE: He is - well, he - he's mostly making it up, I'll say, Chris. CNN's Holmes Lybrand did a fact-check that just went up like an hour or two ago that - that showed that Mexico's apprehensions of migrants has incrementally increased in the - the beginning of April. And so, they - they apprehended 1,300 people the beginning of April, that would put them on pace for about 19,000 over the course of the month. And that's an incremental increase from about 13,000 last month. But it's - it's not true that as the President says, Mexico was not doing this before that this is a dramatic sudden change. We've seen an incremental, you know, relative increase, not a dramatic one.</s>CUOMO: Yes. It's just a ruse to justify not closing the Border because everybody told them--</s>DALE: Sure.</s>CUOMO: --it was a bad idea, which it is. All right, one more. The putative reason for going down there today was to commemorate the first new section of wall that has been built by this President. Listen.</s>GLORIA CHAVEZ, CHIEF BORDER PATROL AGENT, EL CENTRO SECTOR: We would like to present you with this piece of the first 30-foot Border wall installed along the United States border with Mexico.</s>CUOMO: What is the reality of what fence that plaque was put on?</s>DALE: This is comical to me, Chris, because last year - at the beginning of last year, the Assistant Chief Patrol Agent for the Border Patrol in that area took pains, went out of his way, and approached the local newspaper, and told them this is not part of the President's Border wall. This is replacement fencing, a long-planned project that was planned as early as 2009, so the beginning of the Obama era, in which we will replace the old fence with a better fence. Then, later in 2018, the Trump Administration decided, "Hey, we haven't actually built any new wall. We'll just claim that this re - replacement fencing is the new wall." And so, they erected a plaque. And today, they gave him some sort of plaque. But this, again, is - is not any new miles of wall. This is a replacement project.</s>CUOMO: He lies when the truth is good enough. You're putting a better wall. That should be part of the progress. And how dare they put people from CBP who work their hearts out right now and are stretched to have to be there and be a part of it? Daniel Dale, you do your job very, very well, and thank you.</s>DALE: Thank you.</s>CUOMO: All right, Joe Biden all but admits he's getting in the race. Hasn't gotten in, but he admits he's going to get in. Questions about his past, they're not the real challenge. That comes in the challenge to his present, what he says about the party being too far-Left. Is saying it's too far-Left the right move? See what I did there? Great Debate, next.</s>TEXT: CUOMO PRIME TIME.