Trump adamant on wall
US PRESIDENT Donald Trump has urged congressional Democrats in a sombre televised address to fund his long-promised border wall.
His address was laced with dark immigration rhetoric and offered little in the way of concessions or new ideas to break the stand-off that has left swathes of the government shut down for 19 days.
Speaking from the Oval Office, Trump argued on Tuesday night that the wall was needed to resolve a security and humanitarian “crisis”, blaming illegal immigration for what he said was a scourge of drugs and violence in the US and asking: “How much more American blood must we shed before Congress does its job?”
Democrats in response accused Trump of appealing to “fear, not facts” and manufacturing a border crisis for political gain.
Using the formal trappings of the White House, Trump hoped to gain the upper hand in the stand-off over his demand for $5.7 billion (R80bn) to build a wall along the US-Mexico border.
He plans to visit the border today as he continues to pitch what was a signature promise of his 2016 presidential campaign.
He addressed the nation as the shutdown stretched into its third week, with hundreds of thousands of federal workers going without pay and some congressional Republicans growing increasingly jittery about the spreading impact of the impasse.
Trump was to visit the Capitol yesterday to meet Senate Republicans and had invited Democratic and Republican congressional leaders to return to the White House to meet him later.
He claimed the stand-off could be resolved in “45 minutes” if Democrats would just negotiate, but previous meetings had led to no agreement.
Television networks had been reticent about providing him airtime to make what some feared would be a purely political speech.
That concern was heightened by the decision on Tuesday by Trump’s re-election campaign to send out fundraising emails and text messages to supporters trying to raise money off the speech. Their goal: $500 000 a day.
“I just addressed the nation on border security. Now need you to stand with me,” read one message.
Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer accused Trump of misrepresenting the situation on the border. They urged him to reopen government departments and release pay cheques for hundreds of thousands of workers.