Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Tuesday night that President Donald Trump used his prime-time Oval Office address to “manufacture a crisis, stoke fear, and divert attention from the turmoil in his Administration,” Fox News informed.
“The President of the United States – having failed to get Mexico to pay for his ineffective, unnecessary border wall, and unable to convince the Congress or the American people to foot the bill – has shut down the government,” Schumer said in a response delivered jointly with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. “American democracy doesn’t work that way. We don’t govern by temper tantrum.”
Schumer called on Trump to approve legislation ending the partial government shutdown “while allowing debate over border security to continue.”
“We can re-open the government and continue to work through disagreements about policy,” Schumer said. “We can secure our border without an expensive, ineffective wall. And, we can welcome legal immigrants and refugees without compromising safety and security. The symbol of America should be the Statue of Liberty, not a thirty-foot wall.”
In her comments, Pelosi stated that the President’s remarks during the partial shutdown have been “full of misinformation and even malice,” and cast blames on the administration for practicing “cruel and counterproductive policies” at the southern border.
“The fact is: the women and children at the border are not a security threat, they are a humanitarian challenge,” said Pelosi, adding that “President Trump must stop holding the American people hostage, must stop manufacturing a crisis, and must re-open the government.”
Pelosi noted that the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives approved bills to completely reopen the government last week, including a measure to fund the Department of Homeland Security that provides $1.3 billion for border security with no funding for the wall. Trump, who has repeatedly requested $5.7 billion for the wall, has said that he will not sign this legislation and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has repeatedly said he will not put the bill up for a vote in the Senate.
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