Fox Business can’t even get Donald Trump’s wall building promise right in graphic

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During the super awkward interview Fox Business Network host Maria Bartiromo and Donald Trump, a lower third banner graphic seemed to imply Trump promised to have 400 miles of the U.S.-Mexican border wall built by Dec. 31, 2019.

  • The banner read “Trump: We will have 400 miles of wall up by end of year.”
  • While the graphic did not specify what year he was talking about, it is often generally accepted that if no year is given, the current year is the one being discussed.
  • The day Trump’s interview aired was the 119th day of 2019, meaning there were 246 days left in the year.
  • At that rate, to meet Trump’s goal as Fox’s graphic appeared to suggest, workers would need to build roughy 1.6 miles of wall per day (assuming they are working seven days a week).
  • That comes out to about 8,448 feet of wall per day.
  • And that doesn’t even take into account that no design has been finalized for the wall much less any construction started.
  • It’s worth noting that the interview was taped and the graphics Fox Business inserted appeared to be prepared in advance — during the course of the interview, claims or statements made by Trump would often appear almost instantly after he said them.
  • For what it’s worth, even if you give Trump and Fox Business the benefit of the doubt and say that he actually meant the end of 2020 (which is what other sources are reporting), that would give him 612 days to build 400 miles (2020 is a leap year so there’s an extra day in there).
  • That would still require an average rate of 1.53 miles per day, or about 8,078 feet per day (or, if you want to get really precise, 336 feet per hour assuming around the clock work).
  • Again, this estimate still assumes that construction would begin today, which can’t happen given that no final plans have been submitted.