Associated Press/Jacquelyn Martin
President Donald Trump speaks in the Rose Garden of the White House after a meeting with Congressional leaders on border security, Friday, Jan. 4, 2019, at the White House in Washington.
- President Donald Trump recently claimed past presidents privately offered their support for his border wall, but there's no evidence to support this.
- "I have not discussed the border wall with President Trump, and do not support him on the issue," former President Jimmy Carter said in a statement.
- Carter echoed recent statements from former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.
- Former President Barack Obama reportedly hasn't spoken with Trump since Inauguration Day in 2017, and has repeatedly made it clear he opposes the president's immigration policies.
President Donald Trump recently claimed past presidents privately offered their support for his border wall and expressed regret they did not already build one, but there's no evidence to support this.
"This should have been done by all of the presidents that preceded me, and they all know it," Trump said of his wall during a press conference in the Rose Garden at the White House last Friday. "Some of them have told me that we should have done it."
Former President Jimmy Carter on Monday rejected the notion he ever condoned Trump's plan to build a massive wall along the US-Mexico border, an edifice that Trump has been obsessing over since the 2016 campaign season.
Carter in a statement said, "I have not discussed the border wall with President Trump, and do not support him on the issue."
Carter's statement echoed recent statements from spokespersons for former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.
Angel Ureña, spokesman for Clinton, recently told Politico that Clinton "did not" discuss the border wall with Trump. "In fact, they've not talked since the inauguration," Ureña added in reference to Clinton and Trump.
Bush spokesman Freddy Ford told Politico the former president had also not discussed the wall with his successor.
Meanwhile, former President Barack Obama reportedly hasn't spoken with Trump since Inauguration Day in 2017.
Obama did not immediately respond to a request for comment from INSIDER, but he has repeatedly made it clear he opposes Trump's immigration policies - including building the border wall.
"Suggesting that we can build an endless wall along our borders, and blame our challenges on immigrants - that doesn't just run counter to our history as the world's melting pot; it contradicts the evidence that our growth and our innovation and our dynamism has always been spurred by our ability to attract strivers from every corner of the globe," Obama said in 2016. "That's how we became America. Why would we want to stop it now?"
Trump has made building a border wall the centerpiece of his approach to immigration, repeatedly presenting it as a virtually foolproof means of combatting undocumented immigration and related issues.
Read more: Trump averaged 15 falsehoods a day in 2018
The president's insistence on obtaining funding for a border wall, and Democratic opposition to his plan in Congress, have pushed the federal government into a partial government shutdown that has persisted with no end in sight for more than two weeks.
Trump has made a slew of false assertions regarding immigration since his presidential campaign, but particularly in relation to his border wall. His claim past presidents have supported him on this endeavor is yet another addition to an already long list of falsities from Trump on immigration and beyond.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from INSIDER.
Clarification from former U.S. President Jimmy Carter:
"I have not discussed the border wall with President Trump, and do not support him on the issue." -- Jimmy Carter
- The Carter Center (@CarterCenter) January 7, 2019