RAND Senior Structural Engineer Christine Hobson, PE discusses the feasibility of building a border wall on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
Last Friday night RAND was proud and excited to see one of our very own structural engineers Christine Hobson, PE appear on CBS’s Late Show with Stephen Colbert to discuss what it would take to build a “big, beautiful” wall along the southern border of the United States, as proposed by President Donald Trump. Christine was one of four industry professionals, including an architect, a construction contractor, and an interior designer, who provided host Stephen Colbert with the technical requirements of this ambitious, if controversial, project.
Christine and her panel of fellow building experts met weeks before the airing of the segment to put together some rough design concepts and preliminary costs of building an actual 100-foot-high, 2,000-mile-long border wall. As you can see from the video below, the show’s hilarious host took those ideas and put them to great comedic effect—including Christine’s facetious observation that 100 workers a month could die during the construction of the wall! (For the record, she was referring to how many died building the Great Wall of China.)
Politics and comedy aside, Christine and her border wall colleagues had a great time appearing on the show. They were taken on a tour of the famous Ed Sullivan Theater building, where the Late Show is produced, and were given the full hair and makeup treatment prior to taping. The writers, staff members, crew, and Stephen himself were gracious, entertaining, and a pleasure to work with.
“All in all, it was a lot of fun and made us all appreciate the hard work and planning that happens behind the scenes to create the programs that we watch and enjoy every day,” Christine said. “Kudos to everyone at The Late Show and to Stephen Colbert himself for sharing such a wonderful experience with us.”
Side note: @realDonaldTrump has not yet contacted @randpc for our expertise on building “The Wall.”
Peter Scallion is RAND's Business Development Director.
