One of Trump’s biggest lies is falling apart. So naturally, he’s blaming the media for it.

The Grand Trumpian Immigration Follies of 2016 are set to take another turn: Donald Trump has now announced that he will give a major speech (does any Trump speech fail to merit that label?) on the issue on Wednesday, in which he is expected to finally clarify his stance on mass deportations. Trump veep candidate Mike Pence promised yesterday that Trump would clarify it. But it is more likely that instead of clarifying his stance on mass deportations, Trump will instead try to shift the subject away from them entirely. That’s because Trump’s big lie about mass deportations — i.e., that he would carry them out swiftly and humanely, thus Making America Great Again — is falling apart. And he’s now trying to replace that lie by foregrounding another lie.

Trump previewed his speech at a rally over the weekend, at which he said this:

“In recent days, the media, as it usually does, has missed the whole point on immigration. They have missed the whole point. All the media wants to talk about is the 11 million people — or more, or less, they have no idea what the number is because we have no control over our country; they have no idea what it is — that are here illegally.

“But my priority, and really, it’s for the well-being of everybody, but in particular the 300 million Americans and more, and all of our Hispanic citizens, and all of our African American citizens, legal residents who want a secure border. And I mean secure….my goal is to provide good jobs, and even great jobs, good schools and safety, to every Hispanic community, African American community, in the country….we can’t do that if we don’t secure our border….On Day One, I’m going to begin swiftly removing criminal illegal immigrants from this country.”

The idea that we have “no control” over our border is not true. As Jerry Markon reported, as of one year ago, most available evidence indicated that thanks in part to stepped up border security efforts in recent years, “illegal immigration flows have fallen to their lowest level in at least two decades.” But beyond that, let’s pause to marvel at the spectacle of Trump blaming the media for this focus on mass deportations. That promise has been key to Trump’s candidacy for over a year. As early as August of 2015 Trump was already saying on national television that all undocumented immigrants in this country “have to go.” A month later he said that his plan was to round them up “in a humane way.” A couple months after that Trump indicated that “they’re gonna have to go out,” and if not, “we don’t have a country.” In February of this year Trump said: “We have at least 11 million people in this country that came in illegally. They will go out.”

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2016/08/29/one-of-trumps-biggest-lies-is-falling-apart-so-naturally-hes-blaming-the-media-for-it/?tid=pm_opinions_pop_b&utm_term=.67d51bef758c