Tim Scott says he'd finish border wall if elected president

Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), a GOP presidential candidate, said Friday he’d finish the border wall started during former President Trump’s administration if elected to the White House. 

“As president of the United States, I will finish this wall, and I will use the available technology to surveil our border to stop fentanyl from killing another 70,000 Americans in the next 12 months,” Scott said on Fox News’s “America’s Newsroom.” 

Scott blamed President Biden for illegal crossings and deaths from fentanyl, knocking the administration for not closing the southern border. 

The White House contender visited the southern border in Arizona on Friday as the country faces a recent surge of migrant arrests and continued contention over the situation at the border. 

“The devastation that we are experiencing as Americans is preventable. Much of it is preventable if we finish the wall, use technology, fire Joe Biden and hire me,” Scott said. “I will be the president that finishes the wall.” 

Scott's trip to the border was his first as a 2024 GOP candidate. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), another Republican White House hopeful, also stopped at the border earlier this summer. Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley did so earlier this year.

Trump's call to build a wall at the country's southern border was a key aspect of his 2016 presidential campaign. When President Biden beat Trump for the White House in the 2020 race, the new administration reduced border wall funding and stopped construction of new segments of the wall.

Trump told Newsmax last year, before he'd announced his campaign, that resuming building of the border wall would be a top priority in 2024 if he got back to the Oval Office.