QOTD: Donald "shutdown" Trump
by digby
Oh good. This is very helpful:
"If we don’t change it, let’s have a shutdown. It’s worth it for our country. I'd love to see a shutdown if we don’t get this taken care of," Trump said Tuesday as he met with law enforcement officials to discuss the threat of the MS-13 gang.
Trump's comments came just four days before Congress faces another deadline to pass a spending bill or shut down the government. The last spending impasse was resolved only after Democrats extracted a promise that Trump and Republicans would negotiate a solution to immigrants who arrived in the United States as children.
Trump's shutdown threat received immediate pushback even from Rep. Barbara Comstock, R-Va., whose suburban Washington district includes a high percentage of federal government workers and contractors.
"We don’t need a government shutdown on this," she told Trump. "I think both sides learned that a shutdown is bad."
"We are not getting support of the Democrats," Trump shot back. "You can say what you want."
Asked by a reporter if he stood by the shutdown threat, Trump didn't back down.
"I would shut it down over this issue. I can't speak for everybody at the table but I will tell you, I would shut it down over this issue," he said. "If we don't straighten out our border, we don't have a country. Without borders we don't have a country. So would I would shut it down over this issue? Yes."
“Democrats maybe will want to shut down this country because they want people flowing into our country."
President Trump has told confidants that a government shutdown could be good for him politically and is focusing on his hard-line immigration stance as a way to win back supporters unhappy with his outreach to Democrats this fall, according to people who have spoken with him recently.
