Trump's Border Wall Pledge & Reality
CUOMO: All right. So, let's have a little fact fest here. You had the White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney and Press Secretary Sean Spicer insisted that the president deliver on his promise to build a border wall right now. They even had pictures to prove it. So, how about their proof? Is it real? Is it legit? CNN's Gary Tuchman went to the U.S.-Mexico border to find out.</s>GARY TUCHMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): After Budget Director Mick Mulvaney pointed to the photographs of border wall construction, he was asked where it was.</s>MICK MULVANEY, BUDGET DIRECTOR: Oh, I don't know where it's being built.</s>TUCHMAN (voice-over): But we do. We quickly matched up photographs and discovered the location is Sunland Park, New Mexico, which borders a small town near Juarez, Mexico. So we came here and indeed workers are building a new improved and more secured steel wall. (on camera): Construction workers here tell us this is the exact portion of the fence where the picture was taken. The opening in the fence in the photo is now closed with that gate. Interestingly, the picture was taken from the other side of the fence on the Mexican side. The mountains that you see in the background are the mountains here in New Mexico. (voice-over) The budget director declared, quote, "This stuff is going up now because the president wants to make this country safe." But keeping them honest, this stuff has nothing to do with President Trump. Daphne Griffin works at a restaurant near the border.</s>DAPHNE GRIFFIN, WORKS IN SUNLAND PARK: This particular wall came from the Bush administration.</s>TUCHMAN (on camera): Is that common knowledge in this area?</s>GRIFFIN: Yes, absolutely.</s>TUCHMAN (voice-over): President George W. Bush signed the Secure Fence Act of 2006 in October of that year. Since then, he and President Barack Obama approved new construction and improvement construction to border walls and fences from Texas to California. So, it's those two presidents responsible for improvements done to this wall in Sunland Park. This project began in the summer of 2016, months before Donald Trump was elected. (on camera): So, it's nothing unusual?</s>GRIFFIN: No. It's not unusual to see the wall being fixed.</s>TUCHMAN (voice-over): In addition to the frequent trains chugging along the border, one of the first things we noticed here was this chain-link fence separating the countries which a child on the Mexican side was climbing. A fence the budget director actually pointed out.</s>MULVANEY: This doesn't stop drugs and doesn't stop criminals from crossing the border. In fact, it doesn't stop hardly anything from crossing the border.</s>TUCHMAN (voice-over): Press Secretary Sean Spicer also noted it.</s>SPICER: And if you look at that one in particular, you have got a chain-link fence is what is currently at our southern border. That is literally down there now. We are able to go in there and instead of having a chain-link fence replace it with that barreled wall.</s>TUCHMAN (voice-over): Well, keeping them honest again, the chain-link fence has never been a border fence. Workers and law enforcement on the scene who say they can't go on camera, tell us it's just part of the construction site, put up by the construction workers for safety. (on camera): To be clear, border wall and border fencing is often getting repaired and replaced. But if President Trump wants to build a new wall in a place that hasn't had one, he doesn't have the authorization or money to do that. At least yet. (voice-over): What Mr. Trump does have is the right to improve and repair current walls and fences. The same exact thing presidents before him have had. Gary Tuchman, CNN, Sunland Park, New Mexico.</s>CAMEROTA: I'm so glad Gary Tuchman went there and explained it because that's the best explanation we've had thus far.</s>CUOMO: And it's sad that it needs explanation. I mean, one, you should have border security. But this is just B.S., and now, you got Spicer took a hit to his credibility, and Mulvaney, what's he doing talking about border security in the first place?</s>CAMEROTA: When you see the pictures, you go, okay, that is a problem. Then it's very helpful to have an update from a real reporter on the ground to say actually here's what it looks like today. We wouldn't know that if Gary hadn't gone.</s>CUOMO: Hence, the reason to uncover the deception because that's what it was.</s>CAMEROTA: Up next, zero tolerance for a Red Sox fan who used a racial slur at Fenway Park. How the team responded in the next "Bleacher Report".