House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) faced some tougher talk from media hosts, for once, regarding the government shutdown that has lasted 20+ days now. President Trump promised border security during the 2016 campaign. He promised to build a wall. He has to follow through on it. It was one of his signature issues. He’s only asking $5 billion for part of his wall. The Democrats are not willing to play ball after reclaiming the House. Last week, Trump offered to re-open the government in exchange for some of the funding. Democrats rejected it and then tried to apply pressure by trying to invoke sympathy for government workers. No one cares about them, so this fight drags on—and Trump isn’t going to budge. CNBC host Joe Kernen aptly noted that the government could be re-opened if Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer focused on having a sensible counter-offer rather than looking for any moment to stop the president.
CNBC host calls out Democrats for government shutdown: Nancy Pelosi & Chuck Schumer “could open the government any time… they just care about making a political point.” pic.twitter.com/L7pr1rD9JN
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) January 11, 2019
CNN took a break from going down its anti-Trump rabbit hole, with host Alisyn Camerota pushing back on Hoyer for his party’ stance on this whole matter. She noted that both sides want border security (or at least Democrats say they’re for it) and that Trump had moved away from a wall and would have settled for a barrier, another thing that Democrats have supported. Camerota pretty much exposed Democrats for their hypocrisy, which Hoyer responded by saying that he didn’t like Trump shutting down the government because he didn’t get what he wanted. It’s not what he wants though, Steny. Support for the wall has risen since the shutdown, and despite what some liberal publications have decided to deride as fake news, there is a border crisis. The Washington Post and The New York Times have reported on this. It’s a national security priority. This isn’t some pet project, and it’s not like Trumps is asking for hundreds of billions of dollars.
This is about the Democratic Party being trapped by their base. Even Senate Democrats knew from the get-go that some money for border security was going to be coughed up. Yet, it’s now the party of ‘resist all Trump all the time,’ so this shutdown won’t end in the foreseeable future. At the same time, you see where the Left lies on all of these issues.