Trump wants to take money from the troops to build his border wall

Having predictably failed to deliver on his ridiculous campaign promise to get Mexico to pay for his border wall, Trump now wants to take money from the troops to foot the bill.

According to the Washington Post, Trump has privately been pushing the idea in talks with congressional leaders, telling House Speaker Ryan last week that the military should pay for the $25 billion wall.

In a separate meeting last week, Trump reportedly told several senior advisers that the military could afford to pay for his wall with the funding allotted to the Pentagon in the recent spending bill passed by Congress.

Trump’s promise to build a “big, beautiful wall” on the Southern border — and to somehow make Mexico pay for it — was one of his favorite rallying cries on the campaign trail. As expected, Mexico has said it’s not paying a penny for the wall, but Trump isn’t letting that get in the way of making his racist dreams come true.

Last week, Congress passed a spending bill that allotted $1.6 billion for border security, falling far short of the $25 billion that Trump was seeking. The bill also imposed restrictions on how the money could be spent, with just $641 million budgeted for new construction in areas that do not currently have barriers.

Frustrated that Congress didn’t allot enough money for his wall — which border officers have called an “incredible waste of taxpayer money” — Trump threatened to veto the bill before begrudgingly signing it.

Now, Trump is looking to take money from the troops to make up for his own failure and pacify his rabid base.

On Sunday, Trump sent a tweet declaring, “Build WALL through M!” — which many observers interpreted as a reference to Mexico. But two advisers told the Post that the “M” was actually intended to stand for “military.”

Apparently, Trump was not aware of the fact that reallocating military funding to pay for the border wall would require an act of Congress — something that senior officials in Congress and at the Pentagon said was unlikely to happen.

Trump’s proposal to strip money from the military to pay for a border wall is likely to be rejected by the public, as well. Nearly two-thirds of Americans say they’re opposed to the wall — and that was before Trump suggested taking money from our troops to build it.

While the proposal is ridiculous, it’s not exactly surprising. Despite his bold claims about supporting the military, Trump’s actions tell a very different story.

During the first year of his presidency, Trump has repeatedly ignored the deaths of American service members, pushed for policies that would hurt veterans and their families, and failed to protect military pay during the GOP-led government shutdown.

He has put our troops at risk with his reckless bluster and Twitter tantrums, then cynically exploited the grief of military families for his own political gain.

His administration banned non-citizen legal permanent residents from joining the Army Reserve, and prohibited transgender persons from enlisting in the military despite opposition from leading military and national security officials. And yet when Trump was called to serve the country, he wasn’t willing to step up to the plate.

And in between attacking and exploiting service members and their families, Trump has made time to disrespect the service of former-POW John McCain, tout donations to military charities that he never followed through on, smear a Gold Star family, ridicule combat veterans with PTSD, block a prominent veterans’ group on Twitter, smear another Gold Star family, and attack John McCain again.

Oh, and then he demanded that the military throw a parade for him.

Just like he views government resources as part of his business empire, Trump sees the military as an entity that belongs to him.

When he failed as an entrepreneur, Trump would simply look for a loan to patch up the mess he left behind. And now that he’s failing as a politician, he’s looking to the military to pay for his mistakes.