All four living former presidents deny telling Donald Trump that they support his long-promised border wall, contradicting the president’s false claim that his predecessors “told me that we should have” built the wall.
“This should have been done by all of the presidents that preceded me, and they all know it,” Trump said during a news conference on Friday. “Some of them have told me that we should have done it.”
On Monday, former President Jimmy Carter joined the three other living former presidents in confirming that Trump lied about the claim.
“I have not discussed the border wall with President Trump, and do not support him on the issue,” Carter said in a statement through his presidential center.
Spokesmen for former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush told Politico Friday that neither of them had discussed the border wall with Trump. Former President Barack Obama’s spokesman declined to comment.
Aside from a brief interaction at former President George H.W. Bush’s funeral last month, Obama has not spoken to Trump since leaving office in 2017, Politico reported.
However, Obama has repeatedly railed against Trump’s proposal for a border wall.
“We can’t just put walls up all around America. Walls don’t keep out threats like terrorism or disease ― and that’s why we propose leading our alliances and helping other countries develop, and pushing back against tyrants,” Obama said in a speech in September.
During Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016, Obama called the wall “impractical” and quipped: “Good luck with that.”
This article originally appeared in the Huffington Post.
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