Jared Kushner pushes for 'wall cam' to livestream Trump's border wall construction ahead of 2020 poll
President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner has reportedly been pushing to introduce a "wall cam" that will livestream the construction of the president's border wall ahead of the 2020 presidential election.
A senior White House official involved in the bid told The Washington Post: "There will be a wall cam, and it'll launch early next year." The newspaper reported that Kushner had initially proposed the idea of setting up web cameras during meetings in July. Reports state that Kushner had proposed the move in an attempt to install faith in Trump supporters as the administration is slowly trudging towards its goal of completing 450 miles of border wall before the end of 2020.
However, the proposal was pushed back by both the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency, according to the Post. The organizations reportedly feared that live-streaming the construction might disclose their "proprietary techniques" to competitors and rile Mexican officials if construction crews were spotted straying south of the border in an attempt to see the border wall being built.
Kushner, despite their concerns, however, has continued to push for the webcams, with one White House official describing his demands as "aggressive." "It's understood that Kushner is so aggressive because the president has been asking him about all the time," the senior official, on conditions of anonymity, told the outlet.
Kushner has reportedly held meetings with other senior advisers on the development of the border wall nearly every two weeks. However, multiple details of the reported plans of a livestream are still unclear, including the cost of the endeavor.
CBP Acting Commissioner Mark Morgan, in his speech last month, had said that his agency along with the ACE had overseen the completion of nearly 76 miles of "new border wall system" replacing "dilapidated" or "outdated" designs. Reports state that the new border wall developments have been constructed in San Diego, El Centro, Yuma and El Paso Sectors of the agency.