U.S. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump will meet Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto on Wednesday in a hastily arranged visit to Mexico hours before delivering a highly anticipated speech on how he will tackle illegal immigration.
True to Trump’s flair for the dramatic, the visit will guarantee widespread news coverage for the former reality TV star. It also carries some risks for him, however, since most foreign visits at the presidential level are long-planned and carefully scripted.
Trump’s campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, speaking on NBC’s “Today” show on Wednesday, portrayed the Republican candidate’s visit as a “decisive presidential move.” Asked if he would speak to his host in the same blunt terms he has used at home, Conway said Trump would be “very presidential.”
“I think they’ll have a productive conversation today … about illegal immigration but also trade policy and drugs,” she told NBC.
Trump announced the trip on Twitter on Tuesday night and it was confirmed in another tweet by the Mexican government. “I have accepted the invitation of President Enrique Pena Nieto, of Mexico, and look very much forward to meeting him tomorrow,” Trump said.
The private meeting, which Trump and his advisers began considering last week after Pena Nieto’s invitation, will be Trump’s first official interaction with a foreign leader since he began his presidential campaign more than a year ago.
Such trips can be tricky to navigate. Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican nominee, suffered a number of gaffes during a trip to London, Israel and Poland four years ago.
Pena Nieto has dismissed Trump’s demand that Mexico pay for a border wall that the New York businessman has pledged to build if elected on Nov. 8. “There is no way that Mexico could pay for a wall like that,” he told CNN on July 10.
Pena Nieto, who has publicly voiced skepticism about Trump, has been enmeshed in a controversy over whether he plagiarized some of his 1991 undergraduate law thesis.
The talks will take place hours before Trump is to give a major speech on Wednesday night as he seeks to straddle a fine line between being tough on illegal immigration but giving moderate voters a reason to give his candidacy a fresh look.
The latest polls from RealClearPolitics:
Polling Data
| Poll | Date | Sample | MoE |
Clinton (D)
|
Trump (R)
|
Spread |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RCP Average | 8/18 – 8/30 | — | — | 46.7 | 41.4 | Clinton +5.3 |
| Economist/YouGov | 8/27 – 8/29 | 1119 RV | 4.0 | 47 | 42 | Clinton +5 |
| PPP (D) | 8/26 – 8/28 | 881 LV | 3.3 | 48 | 43 | Clinton +5 |
| Monmouth | 8/25 – 8/28 | 689 LV | 3.7 | 49 | 42 | Clinton +7 |
| LA Times/USC | 8/24 – 8/30 | 2576 LV | 4.5 | 42 | 45 | Trump +3 |
| NBC News/SM | 8/22 – 8/28 | 24104 RV | 1.0 | 48 | 42 | Clinton +6 |
| Reuters/Ipsos | 8/20 – 8/24 | 1049 LV | 3.5 | 42 | 35 | Clinton +7 |
| Quinnipiac | 8/18 – 8/24 | 1498 LV | 2.5 | 51 | 41 | Clinton +10 |
Who wants to bet me that Trump gets the President of Mexico to agree to pay for and to build the wall.? I’ll take 1,000,000 to 1 odds. “You mean there is still a chance?” Jim Carrey, Dumb and Dumber.
Trump supporters should know that he thinks you are stupid.
In his speech, where he, not so subtly, called for you to assassinate Hillary, what did he call you?
He called you “those second amendment people.”
Don’t worry, you aren’t alone. It isn’t just people who are passionate about their Second Amendment rights that he despises and disrespects. It’s all the voters that can be fooled into voting for him. Even if they oppose everything you hold dear, he wants their votes, no matter what it takes. Trump couldn’t care less about constitutional amendments, or constitutional law, or laws in general. He cares about Trump. And Trump’s above the law. He can ask a foreign intelligence service to “find” his opponent’s emails, or even suggest his supporters murder her, and there are no consequences. So, why should he be concerned?
But remember, when he says that all he has to do is “mention the wall,” when you’re getting bored during a rally, or that he could murder someone and “not lose a single vote,” he’s talking about you, his “useful idiots.”
And, speaking of immigration and “the wall,” what did he say?
“I’ll build a great wall…” And make Mexico pay for it?
Do you believe him? Does he think you are an idiot? Of course he does.
I, on the other hand, don’t believe all Trump supporters are stupid. Some are merely ignorant of the facts.
Ignorance and stupidity are dreadful maladies.
One is treatable, the other is terminal.
Now, let’s see those tax returns.