“Privately, the president had often talked about fortifying a border wall with a water-filled trench, stocked with snakes or alligators, prompting aides to seek a cost estimate. He wanted the wall electrified, with spikes on top that could pierce human flesh. After publicly suggesting that soldiers shoot migrants if they threw rocks, the president backed off when his staff told him that was illegal.” NYT: Shoot Migrants’ Legs, Build Alligator Moat: Behind Trump’s Ideas for Border. (Trump says he didn’t say this stuff, which is how we know he did.)

+ He didn’t get the snakes or alligators, but what he ended up with is still plenty dangerous. Jonathan Blitzer in The New Yorker: How the U.S. Asylum System Is Keeping Migrants at Risk in Mexico.