Former President Carter on Monday became the latest former president to deny telling President Trump that he regrets not building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Trump last week claimed former presidents have discussed the subject with him.
“I have not discussed the border wall with President Trump, and do not support him on the issue,” Carter, who served as president from 1977 to 1981, said in a statement issued through the nonprofit Carter Center.
His comments come after spokespeople for former President Clinton and former President George W. Bush denied that either man had discussed the prospect of a border wall with Trump.
Clinton spokesman Angel Ureña told Politico last week that the former president had not talked about the subject with Trump.
{mosads}”In fact, they’ve not talked since the inauguration,” Ureña added.
Bush spokesman Freddy Ford also told the news outlet that the two had not talked about his wishes for a border wall.
Former President Obama has not weighed in on the subject, and a spokesperson declined to comment for Politico’s report on the matter last week.
But Obama has never endorsed Trump’s proposal for a border wall, and has criticized the idea behind it.
“Suggesting that we can build an endless wall along our borders, and blame our challenges on immigrants — that doesn’t just run counter to our history as the world’s melting pot, it contradicts the evidence that our growth and our innovation and our dynamism has always been spurred by our ability to attract strivers from every corner of the globe,” he said in 2016, according to Politico.
Trump said at the Rose Garden last week that former presidents have told him they wished they had built a wall themselves while they were in office.
“This should have been done by all of the presidents that preceded me,” Trump said Friday. “And they all know it. Some of them have told me that we should have done it.”
His comments came amid a government shutdown that has now entered its third week. The shutdown, which began on Dec. 22, was triggered after Democrats and Republicans could not come to an agreement over a new spending bill.