Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Trump makes case for wall
President declares ‘crisis,’ but Dems call for end to shutdown
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump made a televised plea for border wall funding Tuesday night, seeking an edge in the shutdown battle with congressional Democrats as he declared there is “a humanitarian crisis, a crisis of the heart and a crisis of the soul.”
Addressing the nation from the Oval Office for the first time, Trump argued for funding on security and humanitarian grounds as he sought to put pressure on newly empowered Democrats amid an extended partial government shutdown.
Trump called on Democrats to return to the White House to meet with him, saying it was “immoral” for “politicians to do nothing.”
The president said that all Americans are hurt by uncontrolled illegal immigration because it strains public resources and drives down jobs and wages.
Trump, who has long railed against illegal immigration at the border, has recently seized on humanitarian concerns to argue there is a broader crisis that can only be solved with a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. But critics say the security risks are overblown and his administration is at least partly to blame for the humanitarian situation.
Trump has been discussing the idea of declaring a national emergency to allow him to circumvent Congress and move forward with
the wall. But he made no mention of such a declaration Tuesday night.
Such an emergency declaration would represent a dramatic escalation of the dispute and would immediately draw legal challenges. It could potentially unlock military dollars for building the wall.
Responding in their own televised remarks, Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer accused Trump of misrepresenting the situation on the border as they urged him to reopen closed government departments and turn loose paychecks for hundreds of thousands of workers.
Schumer said Trump “just used the backdrop of the Oval Office to manufacture a crisis, stoke fear and divert attention from the turmoil in his administration.”
Pelosi, while saying, “We all agree that we need to secure our borders,” she noted in her remarks that president has “chosen fear” in making the case to the American people for the border wall and Democrats “want to start with the facts.”
She said later: “The fact is: President Trump must stop holding the American people hostage, must stop manufacturing a crisis, and must reopen the government.”
Trump used emotional language, referring to Americans who were killed by people in the country illegally, saying: “I’ve met with dozens of families whose loved ones were stolen by illegal immigration. I’ve held the hands of the weeping mothers and embraced the grief-stricken fathers. So sad. So terrible.”
The president often highlights such incidents, though studies over several years have found immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than people born in the United States.
Trump will meet with Republican lawmakers at the Capitol on Wednesday and during his address, he invited Democratic lawmakers to meet with him at the White House. He also plans a visit to the Mexican border on Thursday.
Before the speech, Trump dispatched Vice President Mike Pence to Capitol Hill, where he urged House Republicans to “stand strong” in support and said the White House wants to negotiate, according to people familiar with the conversation.
He also told the group that Trump won’t retreat. “That pickup ain’t got reverse in it,” he said.
With his use of a formal White House speech instead of his favored Twitter blasts, Trump embraced the ceremonial trappings of his office as he tries to exit a political quagmire of his own making. For weeks he has dug in on a signature campaign promise to his base voters, the pledge to build an impregnable “beautiful” wall along the U.S.Mexico border. But now his self-proclaimed deal-making skills are being put to the test.
The partial government shutdown reached its 18th day, making the closure the second-longest in history. Hundreds of thousands of federal workers are going without pay, and government disruptions are hitting home with everyday Americans.
But Trump has not budged on his demands for $5.7 billion in wall funding, and Democrats have not moved from their opposition, while many Republicans watch anxiously from the sidelines.
The number of illegal border crossings is down from 1.6 million in 2000 to less than 400,000 last year. But the number of families coming over the border has risen sharply, putting a strain on health care and immigration services that came into sharp focus with the deaths of two migrant children. Some say Trump’s hard-line policies are slowing processing for migrants, creating an overwhelming bottleneck at the border.
After meeting with Democrats over the weekend, the White House issued a series of budget demands. But mostly Trump still wants his wall.
Trump said in a fundraising email Tuesday: “I want to make one thing clear to Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi: Your safety is not a political game or a negotiation tactic!”