President Donald Trump on Saturday groused that he was marking his one-year anniversary in office with a government shutdown, blaming Democrats for putting him in this unpleasant position.
“Democrats are far more concerned with Illegal Immigrants than they are with our great Military or Safety at our dangerous Southern Border,” the President wrote in the first of three early morning tweets. “They could have easily made a deal but decided to play Shutdown politics instead. #WeNeedMoreRepublicansIn18 in order to power through mess!”
“This is the One Year Anniversary of my Presidency and the Democrats wanted to give me a nice present,” he added. “#DemocratShutdown.”
Republicans and Democrats in the Senate failed to come to an agreement on a spending bill to fund the federal government before Friday’s midnight deadline. Though the GOP controls the White House, has a majority in both the Senate and House, and a handful of Senate Republicans voted with Democrats to filibuster legislation that would have averted a shutdown, Republicans on Capitol Hill are blaming Democrats for the shutdown.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) struck back Saturday morning, blaming Republicans for spending all their time on a corporate tax cut when they could have been negotiating to keep the government funded, and highlighting Trump’s tweet from last summer saying “our country needs a good shutdown.”
“Your wish has come true for your one-year anniversary,” she said, slamming Trump and congressional Republicans for “all-around incompetence, inefficiency and prioritizing with all your hearts and soul that one percent at the expense of the rest of the country.”
“Despite controlling the House, the Senate and the White House, the Republicans were so incompetent, so negligent that they couldn’t get it together to keep the government open. They could get it together to pass a tax credit, 83 percent of which benefits the top one percent, but they couldn’t get it together to pass CHIP,” she continued.
Trump was supposed to attend a lavish fundraiser at his Mar-a-Lago resort in south Florida Saturday night, but the White House has said he won’t leave D.C. until he signs off on a funding agreement.
The Daily Beast reported that the President is unhappy to miss “my party”—a lavish affair hosted by Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel where tickets reportedly sold for $100,000 a pair.
Cameron Joseph contributed reporting.
