Donald Trump Just Said Only “Criminals” Don’t Like the Wall. Actually, a Majority of Americans Don’t.

Polls show that a majority of Americans think the wall is a bad idea.

President Trump speaks in the Rose Garden after a meeting with Congressional leaders on border security on Jan. 4, 2019.Jacquelyn Martin/AP

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On Saturday morning, President Trump, as he is wont to do, took to Twitter to decry his typical targets: “fake” news, the Democrats, and CNN, among other presumed enemies. He also decided to label a majority of Americans criminals:

An NPR, PBS News Hour, and Marist poll taken in late November and early December showed that 69 percent of Americans don’t see the wall as a priority. A Harvard CAPS/Harris poll conducted for The Hill in late December showed that 56 percent of Americans oppose Trump’s border wall, with 58 percent saying the president should withdraw his demand for its funding. Meanwhile, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found that just 35 percent of those surveyed supported including money for the border wall in a congressional spending bill, and a Quinnipiac poll published December 18 found that 54 percent of American voters oppose it and say it’s not necessary to improving border security.

That’s a whole lot of American drug dealers, human traffickers, and criminals.

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In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

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