California Gov. Jerry Brown told NBC News’ Chuck Todd on Meet the Press on Sunday morning that President Donald Trump’s proposed wall along the U.S.-Mexico border reminded him of the Berlin Wall, which divided Germans for decades.
“The wall, to me, is ominous. It reminds me too much of the Berlin Wall,” said Brown. He also said that Trump had “a lot of odor here of kind of a strongman,” and that Americans ought to be careful of “radical changes like a 30-foot wall keeping some in and some out.”
The remarks were reported uncritically by local news outlets such as SFGate.com and Southern California Public Radio.
The Berlin Wall was built in 1961 by the communist regime of East Germany to prevent citizens from leaving the country for West Germany and freedom.
It was the symbol of a hated, tyrannical system and was never desired by residents on either side of the boundary.
The wall finally came down in 1989, marking the beginning of the end of communism in Eastern Europe and the imminent collapse of the Soviet Union.
The proposed border wall with Mexico, by contrast, would be built to keep foreigners from entering the country illegally. In some areas there is already a wall or a fence along the border.
In addition to illegal immigration, the border wall would be intended to help stop Mexico’s ongoing drug cartel wars from bleeding over into the United States, and block the potential infiltration of terrorists from abroad who see the frontier with Mexico as America’s soft underbelly.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He was named one of the “most influential” people in news media in 2016. His new book, How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.