Trump is trying to use footage from five months ago to say his wall is already ‘under construction’

Donald Trump is still fighting Congress to get his border wall with Mexico built.

But yesterday, he made a surprising claim – apparently the wall is already "under construction".

Spoiler alert: It's not.

Trump tweeted a time-lapse video showing a barrier being built, which he said was completed on 30 January.

The problem is the video is not new. Instead, it shows repair work in New Mexico from more than five months ago on barriers that existed before Trump came to office.

In fact, analysis by the New York Timesfound that no new miles of barriers had been built under the Trump administration as of January 2019.

It's unclear whether Trump knew he was posting old footage or if he thought we would be too stupid to notice.

Either way, it should be obvious that the wall isn’t being built – because that’s what he’s been arguing about for months.

The US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), whose logo appears in the bottom right of the video, confirmed it was old footage to military publication Task & Purpose.

Mike Petersen, public affairs director for the USACE’s South Pacific Division said:

It's a replacement project

I was in the division 12 years ago and we were doing border wall replacement work back then.

And a spokesperson added:

The video, which was filmed in September 2018, has the USACE logo on it because it was produced by USACE.

It’s not unusual for Trump to post false statements on Twitter – he’s made more than 8,000 misleading statements or blatant lies within in his first two years as president, according to fact checkers.

And he’s done this before with other pre-existing border barriers.

For what it’s worth, the barrier in the video also looks more like a fence than a wall.

And as we know, there’s a BIG difference.

HT: The Daily Dot

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