Trump tried to appeal to minority voters during a recent speech. (Getty)
Republican nominee Donald Trump arrived in Mexico for a meeting with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto on Wednesday in a scenario fraught with tensions, CNN says.
This is where Donald Trump and Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto will speak in just a few minutes.
Trump landed by private jet. Trump did not travel with the press corps that normally covers him. However, CNN ran watch live coverage of the Trump visit here.
There was also live network coverage of the Trump visit here:
And here:
The meeting took place in the presidential palace in Mexico City. The meeting was expected to take place after a Trump fundraiser held in California. It was also scheduled to take place several hours before Trump gave a major immigration policy speech in Arizona. Hillary Clinton has criticized Trump for trying to create a “photo op” and “dropping in” on Mexico, says ABC News.
The meeting between Trump and President Peña Nieto took place in private. However, Trump and Peña Nieto both spoke publicly after the meeting with Mexican and American journalists. They had generally conciliatory things to say, although they disagreed over whether they discussed whether Mexico would pay for the wall Trump wants to build at the southern border.
Peña Nieto said that guns and drugs flow both ways over the border and illegal immigration is down; Trump said he likes and employs Mexican-Americans. However, in Arizona a few hours later, Trump railed against open borders, brought up cases of illegal immigrants murdering Americans, and promised a wall that Mexico would pay for.
Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto gives his speech next to Paraguay’s president Horacio Cartes (out of frame) at the Palacio Nacional in Mexico City on August 26, 2016. (Getty)
Nieto invited both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump to meet with him, saying he wants to improve “bilateral relations” and protect Mexicans whereever they are.
Hillary Clinton has not yet said whether she will accept the Mexican president’s invite.
The Trump visit sparked intense criticism of the Mexican president because of Trump’s hard line immigration proposals and rhetoric about Mexican immigrants.
Nieto has also had harsh words for Trump in the past. He previously compared the New York billionaire to Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini.
The meeting comes as Nieto suffers from falling poll numbers back home. Trump is trying to close the gap in his own polls against Clinton. The Democratic nominee is ahead in polls.
In recent days, Trump’s advisers had signaled that Trump might soften his most controversial immigration proposals such as, his mass deportation proposal. Trump has also repeatedly insisted that he will build a wall on the Southern border that Mexico will pay for. However, Nieto has said Mexico won’t pay for it.
People were tweeting #TrumpNotWelcome in advance of the visit and former Mexican President Vicente Fox tweeted that Trump should stay out of Mexico.
