President Donald Trump put the looming government shutdown squarely on Democrats Tuesday, emphasizing that Republicans, who passed legislation out of the House to fund the government at current levels earlier this month before Senate Democrats stymied it, want the government to remain open.
During an Oval Office press conference about reductions in Pfizer-produced drug prices, Breitbart News asked the president what the looming Democrat shutdown–which comes as the party’s RealClearPolitics average favorability rating pings at 33 percent–says about the party.
“They are shutting it down. We’re not shutting it down. We don’t want it to shut down because we have the greatest period of time ever. I tell you we have $17 trillion being invested, so the last person that wants it shut down is us,” Trump said.
However, Trump said that if Democrats allow government funding to expire at midnight Wednesday morning as expected, then there are actions the administration can take to implement “irreversible” action Democrats would oppose.
“With that being said, we can do things during the shutdown that are irreversible that are bad for them, and irreversible by them–like cutting vast numbers of people out, cutting things that they like, cutting programs that they like,” Trump said. “And you all know Russell Vought, he’s become very popular recently because he can trim the budget to a level that you couldn’t do any other way.”
Trump underscored that Democrats are “taking a risk” if the government is shut down.
“So they’re taking a risk by having a shutdown because, because of the shutdown, we can do things medically and other ways, including benefits; we can cut large numbers of people out. We don’t want to do that, but we don’t want fraud, waste, and abuse, and, you know, we’re cutting that,” he said. “But they want to have illegal aliens come into our country and get massive health care at the cost to everybody else, and we don’t have it.”
“That’s the number one reason that they want a strike is to get illegal immigrants health care, and you know Gavin Newsom wants that too in California, and it’s destroying California. We can’t have that. We’re not going to let it happen,” he added.
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