Trump's fantasy border wall became even more fantastical yesterday during a meeting with Congressional Republicans.
Trump reportedly called for covering his non-existent wall with solar panels to fund its creation.
Trump floated the idea that the wall could be covered in solar panels and the electricity generated used to pay for the cost.
Trump said his vision was a wall 40 feet to 50 feet high and covered with solar panels so they'd be "beautiful structures," the people said. The President said that most walls you hear about are 14 feet or 15 feet tall but this would be nothing like those walls.
It's not clear how much money Trump believes is in the solar power generation business, but we can infer that he believes it's far more lucrative than it actually is. Selling electricity will never cover the cost of a $50 billion wall.
Financing aside, there are so many other problems with this idea.
Trump probably doesn't even realize it, but he's more or less calling for the creation of a government utility that would usurp all other utilities in the southwest. I imagine local businesses, municipalities, and states would not take kindly to that and a whole new sphere of legal objections could be raised in court.
Trump told the lawmakers they could talk about the solar-paneled wall as long as they said it was his idea. One person cautioned that the President wasn't presenting the solar-paneled wall as the definite solution.
Trump is dumb enough to think this would attract liberal support.