Trump: Shutdown could last ‘months or even years’ if border wall not funded
Tehran (Basirat) :US President Donald Trump says he is willing to keep the government closed for a year or more unless Democrats agree to fund his border wall with Mexico.
Trump confirmed Friday he had made the threat during a meeting with Democratic leaders, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, earlier in the day.
"Absolutely I said that," Trump boasted to reporters, adding, "I don't think it will. But I am prepared."
"It's very important that we have great border security," he continued. "It will be over with sooner than people think. I will do whatever we have to do."
Pelosi and Schumer described their meeting with Trump as contentious, saying they pleaded with him to reopen most of the government, while resolving the dispute over the wall, but he refused.
"He resisted,” said Schumer. "In fact, he said he’d keep the government closed for a very long period of time, months or even years.”
The president said the nearly 800,000 federal workers who are affected by the government shutdown were also supporting him, despite the fact that many of them were forced to work without pay or go on unpaid leave.
"Many of those people, most of those people, that really have not been and will not be getting their money in at this moment, those people in many cases are the biggest fan of what we're doing," he added.
The meeting, like the many others since the beginning of the shutdown on December 22, failed to produce Trump’s desired outcome.
The president has asked for $5.6 billion for the controversial wall, which he insists would stop illegal immigrants and drug traffickers from crossing the US border.
Source: PressTV
