Walker campaign walks back Canada border wall suggestion
So much for a border wall with Canada: Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's spokesman said he doesn't actually think the U.S. needs to block out its northern neighbors after he said Sunday it was a "legitimate" idea.
"Despite the attempts of some to put words in his mouth, Gov. Walker wasn't advocating for a wall along our northern border," Walker spokeswoman AshLee Strong told the Associated Press.
She said he meant that border security was a legitimate issue.
In a web extra of NBC's "Meet the Press" Sunday, Walker was asked whether the U.S. should build a wall along its northern border with Canada. Usually, talk of border walls primarily pertains to the U.S.-Mexico border that sees the most immigration.
"Some people have asked us about that in New Hampshire," Walker replied. "They raised some very legitimate concerns, including some law enforcement folks that brought that up to me at one of our town hall meetings about a week and a half ago. So that is a legitimate issue for us to look at."
Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Democrat, called it "one of the craziest" ideas he's heard this election cycle.
"Governor Walker simply must be unaware of the economic prosperity that commerce across the northern border brings to the United States. Those of us who represent states that share a border with Canada know better," he said in a statement. "It is disappointing but not surprising that yet another Republican presidential candidate is using the border to score cheap political points."
In an interview with Boston Herald Radio, fellow 2016 presidential candidate Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, called a border wall with Canada "a pretty dumb idea."