Washington Free Beacon senior writer Elizabeth Harrington on Tuesday said the idea of building a wall on the southern border is more popular with the American people than the media believe.
Harrington's comments came during a discussion on a contentious meeting between President Donald Trump, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.), and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.), in which border security was a central topic.
"I am proud to shut down the government for border security, Chuck," Trump said. "The people of this country don't want criminals and people that have lots of problems and drugs pouring into our country, so I will take the mantle. I will be the one to shut it down. I'm not going to blame you for it. The last time you shut it down, it didn't work … I'm going to shut it down for border security."
Fox News host Neil Cavuto asked Harrington if it was worth it for Republicans and Democrats to make border wall funding the central issue in the debate over avoiding a government shutdown.
"Yeah, because this is President Trump's signature issue and this might be his last chance with a Republican-led house to get it done, at least a big down payment on the wall, which he's been promising since he went down that escalator," said Harrington. "But yeah, I think it's really sad in a way that the mainstream media finds it so remarkable and wild to see our political leaders actually engaging in discussion over policy. They can't handle it over on the other networks. They're so taken aback. They're much more comfortable, I think, on their shallow palace intrigue stories."
"But here we have a straightforward debate, $5 billion, not that much for something that Chuck Schumer himself as voted for. I think President Trump is willing to have that fight. I think it's a much more popular issue with the American people than the media thinks," Harrington continued.
A CBS poll from June showed 51 percent of Americans support a wall along the southern border. A recently released NPR poll found 57 percent of Americans want the president to compromise on building a border wall to avoid a government shutdown, although only 29 percent of Republicans favored compromise.