Sergio Flores/AFP via Getty Images
- Trump visited the southern border with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Wednesday.
- During a speech, Trump claimed that the border wall only needed a coat of paint when he left office.
- The Trump administration finished building less than a quarter of the planned wall during his term.
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Former President Donald Trump made a trip to the US-Mexico border on Wednesday and falsely claimed that he was almost done with building the wall when he left office.
Speaking at an unfinished section of the wall in Hidalgo County, Texas, Trump said he was just months away from completing construction on the structure. He was visiting the border with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and 31 Republican lawmakers, per Reuters.
"Within two months, everything could have been completed, not sitting there rotting and rusting. It would have been perfecto, it was all set," Trump said during a rambling, 30-minute speech.
He also claimed erroneously during a press conference before his speech that all the wall lacked was some final touches.
"They were supposed to paint the wall. They aren't even doing that. They got to get a coat of paint on the wall. Believe it or not, it does rust. Maybe that's what they like. Let it rust, let it rot," Trump added.
Apart from talking about the border, Trump also went off-topic and ranted about the election results, saying that he "did such a good job" during his term that migration and border control "wasn't even a factor" during the election.
According to an article by The New York Times, the Trump administration built less than a quarter of the 2,000-mile border wall that the former president promised to build throughout his term. According to The Times, only 450 miles of the wall was built during Trump's term, mostly in sections where existing barriers already were.
Biden stopped construction on the border wall on his first day in office.
Trump's outing on Wednesday followed a visit by Vice President Kamala Harris to El Paso last Friday. This was Harris's first visit to the country's southern border since she was sworn in, during which she met with girls living at a US Customs and Border Protection facility.