Washington D.C. [USA]: United States President Donald Trump’s closest aides John Kelly and John Bolton got into a heated argument on Thursday (local time) in the West Wing of the White House.
Kelly, the Chief of Staff and Bolton, the National Security Advisor exchanged heated words regarding the increased inflow of migrants, reported CNN. This comes a few days after reports emerged that a caravan of migrants was heading towards US’ southern border to cross over into the “land of dreams”.
Administration officials have stated that several meetings have taken place between officials regarding the caravan issue, which found mention in Trump’s tweets on Thursday morning when he threatened to shut down US’ southern border to stop the migrants from illegally crossing over.
Trump had launched a scathing attack against the Democrat Party earlier in the day, accusing them of wanting “open borders”.
“I am watching the Democrat Party-led (because they want Open Borders and existing weak laws) assault on our country by Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, whose leaders are doing little to stop this large flow of people, INCLUDING MANY CRIMINALS, from entering Mexico to US,” Trump tweeted.
He further said, “In addition to stopping all payments to these countries, which seem to have almost no control over their population, I must, in the strongest of terms, ask Mexico to stop this onslaught – and if unable to do so I will call up the U.S. Military and CLOSE OUR SOUTHERN BORDER!”
Another tweet read, “The assault on our country at our Southern Border, including the Criminal elements and DRUGS pouring in, is far more important to me, as President, than Trade or the USMCA. Hopefully Mexico will stop this onslaught at their Northern Border. All Democrats fault for weak laws!”
Trump reportedly took Bolton’s side during the argument, however, the US President later denied having any knowledge about the argument which took place in the West Wing.
Onlookers speculated that Kelly may resign following Thursday’s incident, while Sarah Sanders, the White House Press Secretary stated that “we are not angry at one another”, all the while not denying of the occurence of the heated back and forth.
Sanders stated, “While we are passionate about solving the issue of illegal immigration, we are not angry at one another. However, we are furious at the failure of Congressional Democrats to help us address this growing crisis.”
Criticising the Democrats for supporting the notion of open borders, she further said, “They should be ashamed for pushing an open borders agenda and are only doing this for strictly political reasons. Despite us having the worst laws in the world and no help from Democrats, our Administration is doing a great job on the border.”
Trump ended migrant family separations which was a key component of the Trump administration’s zero tolerance immigration policy a few months back, following which Department of Homeland Security’s unpublished statistics pointed towards a spike in the influx of migrants.
[source_without_link]ANI[/source_without_link]