President Trump threatened to keep the partial government shutdown going for “months or even years,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said at the White House on Friday — comments Trump himself confirmed shortly afterward.
“We told the president we needed the government open. He resisted. In fact, he said he’d keep the government closed for a very long period of time — months or even years,” Schumer said as he and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) exited a contentious meeting with the president on the shutdown’s 14th day.
Trump confirmed he’d said that.
“I did. Absolutely I said that,” he said when asked about Schumer’s claim in a Rose Garden press conference shortly afterwards.
Trump has refused to back off his demand for more than $5 billion for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, forcing a government shutdown over his demands. Democrats continue to say that’s a nonstarter.
On Thursday night, the Democratic-controlled House passed bills funding most of the government through September and funding the Department of Homeland Security for a month so the two sides could continue to negotiate — the same bills the GOP-controlled Senate passed unanimously at the end of December. But Trump has said he won’t accept that deal, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has made clear he won’t give the bills another vote in the new Congress.
“We’ll continue discussing, of course, but it’s very hard to see how progress will be made unless they open up the government,” Schumer continued.
Pelosi described the meeting as a “lengthy and sometimes contentious conversation with the president.” She said some progress had been made in the meeting — but only in the sense that the two sides understood each other’s position better and had eliminated options that one side or the other didn’t find acceptable.
This post was updated at 2:25 p.m. to include Trump’s confirmation of his remarks.
Well I knew the week was going to be bananas, no disappointment on that account.
Where are all the furloughed republicans? They should be hollering at their MOC loudly.
Did he cry and stomp his feet?
No pay for border patrol for years and years? That certainly proves how much ya care about border security.
Really fucking stupid thing to say, so yeh, we know Trump said it.
Trump is going to destroy the few moderates left in his party. Gardner and Collins, and McSally, and probably Earnst and Tillis had better figure out a way to get this to end, or they can start packing up their offices, because they are going to be out on their ass come 2020.
That Trump’s cronies are not only getting paid, but getting raises while stories of people getting hurt keep multiplying is just the last nail in the coffin.
p.s. and since every hearing to exclude and deport folks is on hold, and the enforcement system is on hold for now, what keeping part of the government shut for two years would really do is open up the border. Perhaps Trump is trying to increase the work force of illegals for his resorts.