President Donald Trump blasted Democrats on Tuesday over their government shutdown, stating their lack of leadership reminds him of Somalia.
Trump took a dig at Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Democrats as they continue to keep the government closed, despite Republicans passing a clean continuing resolution almost three weeks ago in the House of Representatives.
“I just don’t know if Schumer has any power anymore. I look at your leadership; I don’t know who to speak to,” Trump said.
“I’ll tell you what. I’m getting calls from Democrats wanting to meet. I never even heard their names before, and they’re claiming to be leader — the Democrats have no leader. They remind me of Somalia,” he added.
Trump’s dig came during his response to a reporter asking about programs the administration has identified to nix due to the shutdown.
While he would not divulge which programs he is looking at cutting, he said, “We have a lot” that would be eliminated. By forcing a shutdown, Democrats created a dynamic where the Trump administration, specifically Director of the Office of Management and Budget Russ Vought, must cut nonessential funding to save for essential services.
“One of the things that we have as some advantage, you could say, but because of the shutdown, which I think they made a big mistake, we’re able to take out billions and billions of dollars of waste, fraud, and abuse, and they’ve handed it on a silver platter,” Trump said.
“And you know, Russell Vought, he’s a serious person, very serious person, and he’s sitting there and he’s getting ready to cut things. And this is something that was handed to us by, I assume, Schumer,” he added.
Trump was also asked about potential permanent federal worker layoffs and said he would be able to share those in five days or so if the shutdown persists.
“I’ll be able to tell you that in four or five days, if this keeps going on. If this keeps going on, it’ll be substantial, and a lot of those jobs will never come back,” he said, adding that America would also be “a lot closer to a balanced budget.”
The White House has already paused $18 billion and $2.1 billion in New York City and Chicago infrastructure projects since the shutdown began, and canceled nearly $8 billion in “Green New Scam” funding, affecting projects in blue and blue-leaning states.
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