After receiving criticism from President Obama over his plan to pay for a U.S.-Mexico border wall, GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump said the president’s entire administration is “half-baked.”
“His whole administration is half-baked,” Mr. Trump told Fox News backstage at a rally Wednesday evening in New York. “They don’t know what they’re doing.”
“We’re going to build it. Mexico’s going to pay for it,” Mr. Trump said. “I explained how they’re going to pay for it.”
The Trump campaign released a plan earlier this week that outlined how he would threaten to block remittance payments from workers in the U.S. back to Mexico unless the Mexican government agreed to pay for the wall.
Asked about the proposal, Mr. Obama said people expect the president of the United States and elected officials in the country to treat problems seriously and put forward policies that have been vetted.
“They don’t expect half-baked notions coming out of the White House,” the president said. “We can’t afford that.”
Part of the plan would entail redefining rules on wire transfer companies such as Western Union to require customers to prove they were legally in the U.S.
Mr. Trump said he expected Mexico to object, and that he would agree to back off of the new rule if the Mexican government agreed to pay for the wall.
“The notion that we’re going to track every Western Union bit of money that’s being sent to Mexico — good luck with that,” Mr. Obama said.
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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