Donald Trump Jr. is being flayed on social media after he posted an Instagram story comparing a border wall to a zoo fence, amid a national debate over border security.
“You know why you can enjoy a day at the zoo?” Trump wrote. “Because walls work.”
Trump Jr. made his comment on Tuesday evening as his father addressed the nation, calling once again for funding a wall along the US’ southern border. At present, the government has been partially shut down for 18 days as Trump struggles to reach a deal with congressional Democrat leaders to fund the wall.
Donald Jr’s post instantly triggered the anti-Trump masses on Twitter.
“The son of the President of the United States just compared immigrants seeking asylum to zoo animals,” one commenter wrote. “Good night, America.”
Others goaded the First Son, suggesting he might end up behind bars “very soon” for still unproven shady dealings with a Russian lawyer during the 2016 election campaign.
As Trump Jr. posted on Instagram, his father struck a different tone in his much-anticipated television address to the nation.
Calling the current situation at the Mexican border “a crisis of the heart and a crisis of the soul,” Trump claimed that building a wall would reduce the harm done to Americans by drug traffickers, criminal gangs, and migrant workers, whom he said undercut the wages of African-Americans and Hispanics.
In a ‘good fences make good neighbors’ kind of argument, the president also pointed out that anti-wall politicians like former President Barack Obama build walls around their own houses.
“They don’t build walls because they hate the people on the outside,” Trump said. “But because they love the people on the inside.”
Like this story? Share it with a friend!