At present, the United States federal government remains shutdown, and there are plenty of indications it’s going to remain that way into the new year. No mass numbers of government workers suddenly struggling to make ends meet are going to stop the members of the Trump administration from continuing to grind their partisan ax, however. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders appeared this week on CBS This Morning and sought to cast her boss — President Donald Trump — as the hero and Democrats as lazy partisans. That remains a gross misrepresentation of the situation, however.
The administration, including via Sanders this week on CBS, has consistently claimed that the president’s long sought border wall blocking off Mexico is desperately needed. As the press secretary put it:
‘[Trump] wants border security. He wants to be able to have the resources and the tools that are needed that [Customs and Border Patrol] and the Department of Homeland Security have laid out that they have to have in order to protect our border and in order to protect American citizens.’
Watch below.
Down in reality, Trump proves more committed to the political ploy of a border wall than to protecting American citizens. His administration has left more than 90 percent of the previous year’s allocation for border security unspent, U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) has explained, quipping:
‘This is politics, not policy.’
Democrats have refused to get on board with the administration’s political ploy, and the president has refused to budge on his demand for billions of dollars for a border wall — and so, the government partially shut down for lack of approved funding.
As the shutdown drags on, Sanders and all her associates continue to completely dismiss the concept that perhaps the wall isn’t the white knight we all need — although she did admit that the president has been “willing to negotiate” on the amount of money allocated for the wall, without offering specifics.
As she put it:
‘The president has been willing to negotiate on this point, and the Democrats have not been willing to do anything. That’s the sad part. They care more about keeping our borders open than keeping our government open. They do not want to protect American citizens, but they do want to protect illegal immigrants.’
That’s just nonsense.
Democrats do not support “open borders” en masse. As Merkley put it, Democrats are “absolutely willing to fund border security” — just not Trump’s racist vanity project. They advocate for a sensible immigration system that treats the people who move through it as just that, people, and not oh-so-scary “illegal immigrants.”
Meanwhile, the administration continues their quest to stick to their partisan line and demonize everyone from Democrats to immigrants in the process. Sanders claimed during her time on CBS that “we pick up ten known or suspected terrorists a day coming across our border” — and that’s a blatant lie. Via all methods of entry to the United States — including plane travel — from anywhere in the world, authorities come across roughly seven individuals associated with terror watch lists per day.
There remains no evidence for the president’s claim of “unknown Middle Easterners” sneaking into the U.S. via immigration from Mexico.
Yet, the nonsense keeps on going anyway.
Featured Image via Screenshot from the Video
