A global pandemic hasn't completely distracted President Trump from his favorite project.
Yes, Trump is still dead-set on building a wall along the southern border, and he still wants it painted black. So much so that he's considering paying an extra $500 million to make it happen, contracting estimates obtained by The Washington Post reveal.
Trump had a section of the wall painted "matte black" about a year ago because he thinks the coloring will make the steel barrier too hot to touch in the summer. Military commanders and border officials told Trump that continuing the paint job would be costly to apply and maintain, and reportedly thought they'd talked him out of it. But Trump brought it up again in a meeting last month amid the coronavirus pandemic, and ordered officials to get cost estimates for the paint, four administration officials told the Post. Those cost estimates show a black coating could cost anywhere from $500 million for two coats of acrylic paint to $3 billion for a so-called "powder coating" along a new section of border wall, the Post reports.
Meanwhile, Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner is seemingly getting fed up with running the border wall project. Kushner is heading the construction, and told everyone at a recent meeting that "the wall was not his favorite project but that he is the only one who can get it done," the Post writes. Read more about how much the wall and its apparently mandatory paint job will cost at The Washington Post.
