Trump Is Taking A New Tack On Blaming Democrats For The Government Shutdown
It's a new year, but nothing much has changed since 2018. As of Thursday, Jan. 3, we've entered into the 12th day of the partial government shutdown, and it doesn't look like there will be a solution anytime soon. Even though in the beginning the president claimed he'd take all responsibility for any government closure, Donald Trump blamed the shutdown on Democrats for a very out there reason.
On Thursday, Jan. 3, President Trump took to Twitter to address the partial government shutdown, and claimed that it's "only because of the 2020 presidential election" and that Democrats are the ones to blame. He even went so far as to call the shutdown "presidential harassment." Truth be told, it sounds similar to past remarks he's made about the topic, but bringing up the upcoming presidential election is probably getting a little ahead of himself, given that it's still nearly two full years away. To be fair, Trump's comment might be influenced by the fact that Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren recently announced that she would be launching an exploratory committee for the 2020 presidency. So, he could be feeling a bit threatened at the moment.
Trump wrote,
The Shutdown is only because of the 2020 Presidential Election. The Democrats know they can’t win based on all of the achievements of “Trump,” so they are going all out on the desperately needed Wall and Border Security - and Presidential Harassment. For them, strictly politics!
Elite Daily reached out to the White House for additional comment, but did not immediately hear back.
Since the partial government shutdown kicked off on Dec. 21, Trump and House Democrats have been at odds over finding a compromise to the current problem. Leading up to the shutdown, Trump has been insistent on Congress approving a $5 billion budget to fund a border wall between the United States and Mexico, which Trump has said is important to increase "border security." On Tuesday, Dec. 11, Trump met with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (since elected to the role of speaker of the House), Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, and Vice President Mike Pence in the Oval Office to discuss the U.S-Mexico border wall and his threats of a government shutdown. Even though the discussion was supposed to be calm and professional, it quickly spun out of control.
While speaking to Pelosi and Schumer, Trump boldly said he would be "proud to shut down the government" if his border wall demands weren't met. However, he then proceeded to claim that he would take full responsibility for the shutdown if it occurred.
"I will take the mantle,” Trump said. “I will be the one to shut it down, I'm not going to blame you for it."
It's truly incredible what can change in just a few weeks.
Even though that particular battle royale happened last month, there still hasn't been any solution brought forth that would end this shutdown. Hopefully some compromise will be made, especially since Trump met with a handful of top congressional leaders on Wednesday, Jan. 2 in the White House's ominous Situation Room to discuss the shutdown. Elite Daily reached out to the White House for comment about this report at the time, but did not hear back. Seeing as the meeting took place in a top-secure location, we're not sure what was said, or whether an agreement was made. However, let's hope that everyone was on their best behavior.
Finger pointing and playing the blame game may be easy to do, but it's time to push differences aside and actually get work done. We'll see how this all unfolds.
