Was it just a coincidence that after Ann Coulter started posting tweets that said: “Number of miles of wall built today: Zero. Number of miles built so far: Zero”—that Trump all of sudden started dipping into national defense budgets to pay for the wall? Paul Ryan et al. were playing games. They were giving Trump half-a-billion here and there. Ann Coulter’s tweets, which were done over several months, lit a fire under Trump’s behind.
Look, I am a huge Trump supporter. I also like Ann Coulter. In fact, her book Adios America was Trump’s playbook and is THE reason why illegal immigration became front and center in 2016. We need people like Ann Coulter and others like her to push Trump in the right direction. BTW, there were MANY people who said that Trump could reallocate money for the wall. He could have done this in early 2017. I think Trump and his people thought they were better off using it as a campaign issue for 2018, to blame Democrats for the wall not being built. The problem was that Republicans controlled everything, so that argument wasn’t playing with the anti-illegal immigration base. BTW, a majority of the “new” wall is actually replacement wall (which was definitely needed). There would have been no “studies” necessary to tear down old wall and put up new, better wall.
“Was it just a coincidence that after Ann Coulter started posting tweets”
Yes it was.
Coulter has been undercutting President Trump during his whole Presidency - she did not start just before some pivotal policy change.
President Trump declared the emergency and diverted the funds strictly according to the Congressional appropriations timeline - totally unrelated to anything Coulter may or may not have been saying.
To be done right (sustainably), border security has to be in the budget in perpetuity. Maintenance and operations funds are needed. To achieve that, the President needed Congressional cooperation.
Also, the Republican Party needed to maintain unity on the issue. They claimed that they had to reduce risk of wasting money, by having the analysis complete and vetted, before sinking the main funds - aim before firing. That is the normal budget process, built into Congressional rules. It was greatly accelerated for President Trump’s number one priority, but still was adhered to.
As soon as the Comprehensive Plan was finally accepted by Congress (Dec 2018), they were to have funded full scale deployment, according to Congressional leaders.
But Democrats took control of the House the next month, and reneged on the deal. As soon as they voted on a budget that did not contain the money needed for full scale deployment (14 Feb 2019), the President declared the Emergency the very next day (15 Feb, not waiting for for the legislation to arrive at his desk). Ann Coulter had not a damn thing to do with it - it was strictly driven by Congressional budget realities.
“Trump all of sudden started dipping into national defense budgets to pay for the wall?”
Again, if you had any real experience, with real Federal or Military budgets, you would know that there are long lead times to make changes. Many second and third order effects occur when Program funding is shifted. These can be life and death issues in the Military.
When the emergency declaration was made 15 March 2019, all of the exact funding that would be reallocated ($3.6 billion in Military Construction funds (MILCON), $2.5 billion in Military Counter-Narcotics funds, and $600 million in Treasury Department Asset Forfeiture Account funds) was detailed - indicating a long period of planning and preparation had preceded the announcement.
Having worked on the Military budget myself, I believe it very unlikely that planning for that diversion started any less than a year prior - likely within months of President Trump taking office.
“There would have been no “studies” necessary to tear down old wall and put up new, better wall.”
Of course there was a need for a study. All major construction is preceded by extensive analysis and documentation - years’ worth - surveys, design documents (blueprints), work breakdown structures, cost estimates, financial analysis, competitive contracting/sourcing strategy, etc..
How much money will be needed when? You have to have a detailed plan to estimate those costs. What kind of barrier (costs vary more than tenfold), what is the priority order? What? Where? How? Who? When? There are a thousand questions that must be answered, before real world professionals embark on a multi-billion dollar construction effort - or anybody is going to give them billions of dollars to do it.
No competent real estate professional (like Donald Trump) is going to start spending billions of dollars, until those questions are answered. The simple reality is that there is a long lead time to break ground on major construction projects, and this one is beyond simply major - it is historic in scope.
The reality is that the normal multi-year lead times were greatly shortened for the Trump Wall Program, and he is on track to bring the project in below cost and ahead of schedule, from what was developed in the Comprehensive Plan ($25 billion over 5 years). He has the money, and the contract vehicles in place, to lock it in before the end of this year, even though the contractors will have to work feverishly to deliver their contract obligations, through all of next year.
It has been a masterstroke to advance this huge program so far, so fast.
Ann Coulter knows this, and yet continually (and deliberately) misstates the reality. She lies outright about the status of facts (like today’s “Trump didn’t build the wall”, when over 190 miles of new Super Wall System are already standing, just for an example). When Calexico, or San Diego (the biggest City on the border) experienced order of magnitude improvements after the completion of new Trump-style Super Wall System, Ann Coulter would tell her readers “Number of miles built so far: Zero” (supposedly because there was some trivial quibbling distinction she was choosing to rely on, about what would count).
The most outrageous and ridiculous of her lies, is that she somehow drives Presidential policy with her criticisms, and nothing would happen without her prompting. Delusion.