Trump urges Biden to halt "criminal act" of selling off pieces of unfinished border wall
Palm Beach, Florida - President-elect Donald Trump is urging current President Joe Biden to stop selling leftover pieces from his border wall, or else there may be consequences.
During a press conference on Monday at his Mar-a-Lago estate, Trump claimed Biden's administration made "a deal with the United States to buy [the materials] for pennies, and then they call us, and they say, 'Do you want to buy it back?'"
"It's very expensive, and now it's about double the price of what it would have been six years ago, and the administration is trying to sell it for five cents on the dollar, knowing that we're getting ready to put it up," Trump explained.
"I'm asking today, Joe Biden, to please stop selling the wall. We're going to use that to create a strong barrier," he said, later adding, "Hopefully, Joe will be able to stop it."
Trump's comments come as the Biden administration faces heavy backlash from the right after it was recently discovered that materials for the wall were being sold on a GOVPLANET online auction.
Dan Patrick, the Lieutenant Governor of Texas, described the auction as "a Biden ruse to gain favor with the radical left open border crowd, showing Biden was fighting President Trump to the bitter end," and accused Biden of "treating our country like a yard sale."
Trump also said he has been speaking with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and other officials about possibly mandating a "restraining order" if his demand is not met.
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In a statement to ABC15, the Department of Defense argued the auction was in compliance with Congress' 2024 National Defense Authorization Act, which ordered unused pieces of the wall to be used, transferred, or donated. States along the southern border were then given preference to purchase pieces, buying out 60% of the stock while the rest was sold to GOVPLANET.
"The material currently being sold through GOVPLANET online auctions no longer belongs to the US Government, and DoD has no legal authority to recall the material or stop further resale of material it no longer owns," the statement adds.
Nonetheless, Trump insisted during his press conference that Biden's administration "[doesn't] want this country to succeed," adding this is the most "egregious" example of their lack of "common sense."
Cover photo: Collage: Kevin Dietsch / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / Getty Images via AFP & Eric BARADAT / AFP