House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is fed up. The partial federal government shutdown sparked by President Donald Trump’s refusal to approve any further government funding without billions of dollars for a border wall is entering its third week, and she slammed the president and his GOP allies for their continuing avoidance of their responsibility as members of the government during a press conference this Thursday.
She explained that under her leadership, House Democrats continue to put forward bills that have already passed the Senate to re-open key parts of government like the Treasury Department, Interior Department, and beyond, yet, there has been no progress in actually getting the GOP at large to jump on board with getting the government re-open.
Pelosi exclaimed:
‘We’re just saying to them — take yes for an answer. This is what you have proposed! Why are you rejecting it at the expense of the health safety and well being of the American people? Did you take an oath to the Constitution or an oath to Donald Trump? These families — many of them veterans — are not able to meet their mortgage payment, their rent payment, their car payment.’
Watch below.
Hundreds of thousands of government workers have indefinitely lost their paychecks while Trump holds key government services hostage over his wall demands. The president has claimed that he “can relate” to their plight but the workers would support his push for a border wall if asked, but there is no evidence for this. While Trump makes up that there’s a “crisis” at the southern border, a real crisis unfolds as his lofty promises to bring jobs to the American people go up in smoke under the weight of the literal hundreds of thousands of people he personally has put out of work.
Yet, he still continues on with his aggressive stance anyway and has insisted he’s willing to have the government remain shutdown for months or even years if he doesn’t get what he wants. He stormed out of a meeting with Pelosi and other Democratic leaders this week after they said they wouldn’t support a wall, and he’s also claimed he’s willing to declare a national state of emergency in an effort to use his executive power to get the wall built.
As Pelosi put it:
‘[Trump is] also harming the full faith and credit of the United States of America and our credit rating if he lets this go on with statements so irresponsible.’
She added:
‘The president doesn’t believe in governance so he doesn’t care if governance takes place. He doesn’t appreciate the role of public policy in the lives of the American people.’
To be clear, while Americans suffer, there remains no crisis at the southern border of anywhere near the magnitude the Trump team has claimed. “Known or suspected terrorists” do not by any stretch of the imagination “pour over the border,” and neither even do illicit drugs in any form that would be mostly addressed by a border wall. Most of them come smuggled through legal ports of entry!
Trump then has little to no basis in reality for his continued push for a border wall. It’s that simple.
Featured Image via Screenshot from the video
