Trump throws wall ‘tantrum’
President Donald Trump abruptly walked out of talks on ending a US government shutdown yesterday calling them a ‘‘total waste of time’’ after Democrats refused to budge on funding the wall he wants to build on the southern border.
The dramatic breakdown of negotiations came after Trump’s appeal to the nation in his first Oval Office prime-time broadcast the previous evening when he called illegal migration on the border ‘‘a crisis of the heart and a crisis of the soul’’.
Democratic leaders emerged first from a brief discussion at the White House yesterday to say that the president had a ‘‘temper tantrum because he could not get his way ... he just walked out of the meeting’’.
Trump then tweeted: ‘‘I asked what is going to happen in 30 days if I quickly open things up, are you going to approve Border Security which includes a Wall or Steel Barrier? [Speaker Nancy] Pelosi said, NO. I said bye-bye, nothing else works!’’
Mike Pence, the vice president, then accused the Democrats of failing to negotiate even though ‘‘we incorporated Democratic ideas and language and made an offer to end this impasse ... we heard once again Democrat leaders are unwilling to even negotiate’’.
Hours earlier Trump insisted that Democrats were losing support after warning of a ‘‘growing humanitarian and security crisis’’ on the frontier with Mexico in his first live address to the nation from the Oval Office.
As the US government remained partially shut down for the 19th day over the impasse, pressure was increasing on US leaders to reach agreement because 800,000 federal employees will not be paid tomorrow unless annual funding is signed off by Congress. Trump has demanded that the legislation includes US$5.7 billion (NZ$8.4b) to start the wall he promised in his 2016 election campaign. Trump, who will travel to the border today, said that he might yet declare an emergency and seize the money from the Pentagon budget. ‘‘I have the absolute right if I want. My threshold will be if I can’t make a deal with people that are unreasonable,’’ he said at the signing of a bill on human trafficking.
Cracks began to show in Republican support for a state of emergency, which may explain why Trump has refrained from using it.
‘‘I think border security is very important. It is not a responsibility of the Department of Defence,’’ Mac Thornberry, a Texas congressman and the top Republican on the House armed services committee, said. ‘‘I’m opposed to using defence dollars for non-defence purposes.’’ Roger Williams, a fellow Texas member, added: ‘‘Right now, I don’t support that. We need to go through the system.’’
‘‘We incorporated Democratic ideas and language and made an offer to end this impasse ... we heard once again Democrat leaders are unwilling to even negotiate.’’