In a highly anticipated prime-time event, President Donald Trump delivered his first Oval Office address Tuesday night to discuss the continued battle over funding for his border wall.
“This is just common sense. The border wall would very quickly pay for itself. The cost of illegal drugs exceeds $500 billion a year vastly more than the $5.7 billion we have requested from Congress. The wall will also be paid for indirectly by the great new trade deal we have made with Mexico,” Trump said.
He also pointed out that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has “repeatedly supported a physical barrier in the past along with many other Democrats.”
“How much more American blood must we shed before Congress does its job? To those who refuse to compromise in the name of border security I would ask: imagine if it was your child, your husband, or your wife whose life was so cruelly shattered and totally broken. To every member of Congress: pass a bill that ends this crisis,” Trump said.
Schumer and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA-12) responded to Trump in their own address Tuesday night.
“I appreciate the opportunity to speak directly to the American people tonight about how we can end this shutdown and meet the needs of the American people. Sadly, much of what we heard from President Trump throughout this senseless shutdown has been full of misinformation and even malice,” Pelosi said.
After the #TrumpAddress, @SenSchumer & I turned our focus to the facts & how we can end the #TrumpShutdown. pic.twitter.com/mSYoyUOFCZ
— Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) January 9, 2019
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Anthony Gockowski is managing editor of Battleground State News and The Minnesota Sun. Follow Anthony on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
[…] Tuesday, Trump said, “This is just common sense. The border wall would very quickly pay for itself. The cost of […]
@John Bumpus. I agree. The democrats don’t care about the killing of Americans or the drugs and human trafficking or terrorists crossing the border. They’re not going to negotiate. They only want to stop Pres. Trump from keeping his greatest pledge to the people and grind him into political dust.
I’ll be surprised if Sen. Alexander will support the President on building the wall since he is a true blue rhino and can show his true color now that he’s not running for office again.
I don’t think that the Congressional Dems want to negotiate a deal with President Trump, but rather, I think that what these Dems really want is a WIN over President Trump on this matter. The Dems know that if Trump ‘caves’ on building the wall—his signature 2016 campaign issue—he will be defeated for re-election in 2020. Dems don’t want a deal to resolve this impasse, Dems want Trump’s DEFEAT (his total humiliation) on the wall construction funding issue.
I expect Senator Alexander to fully support the President on this issue in every way imaginable. I have no fears about Sen. Blackburn fully supporting the President. If the partial government shutdown must continue for months to achieve the President’s goal, then so be it. (Federal nonessential employees who need money can go get another job if that is what they need to do to pay their bills.) If the President declares a National Emergency concerning the crisis on the country’s southern border to get the wall built, I likewise expect Sen. Alexander to fully support the President in this. For me, I will agree to none of the ‘weak-kneed’ cross-the-aisle Senate deal ‘stuff’ that Alexander is so ‘famous’ for.