Demand end to shutdown? HaHaHaaaa...

Trump lays into Pelosi, Schumer to demand end to shutdown

By CAITLIN OPRYSKO

President Donald Trump accused Democratic leaders once again on Tuesday of “playing politics” when it comes to funding a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, raising alarm about a fresh group of asylum-seeking migrants making their way towards the U.S. that he said only a wall will be able to "stop."

The president urged House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) to end the partial government shutdown, now the longest in history as it enters its 25th day. Talks to end the shutdown appear to remain at an impasse, with Democrats unwilling to meet the president's demands for border wall funding and Trump signaling an unwillingness to accept anything less than what his administration has asked for.

On Tuesday, the president continued to paint the flow of migrants into the U.S. as a danger to the country, a tack he took leading up to the midterm elections when he referred to another group of migrants as an “invasion.”

"A big new Caravan is heading up to our Southern Border from Honduras. Tell Nancy and Chuck that a drone flying around will not stop them," Trump wrote on Twitter. "Only a Wall will work. Only a Wall, or Steel Barrier, will keep our Country safe! Stop playing political games and end the Shutdown!"

He also pointed to unnamed polling that he said indicates a majority of Americans believe there is a crisis at the border, but the full scope of recent mainstream polling shows there is no clear consensus.

While a Quinnipiac University poll released Monday showed that majorities of voters thought there was both a security and humanitarian crisis on the southern border, majorities of voters polled were negative about erecting a wall there. In a CNN poll released over the weekend, 52 percent of respondents said they did not believe the situation at the border to be a crisis, and a majority also opposed building a wall.

Respondents in a Washington Post/ABC News poll released over the weekend also rejected the idea that there is a crisis at the border, with only 24 percent in agreement with the president. Of those polled, 47 percent said there was a “serious problem” at the border but that it wasn’t a crisis.

The president also claimed Tuesday that Democrats were not in favor of border security, a position he called “ridiculous,” predicting soon they would be known as the “Party of Crime.” Democrats from both the House and Senate have insisted they are in favor of border security, pointing to money appropriated for it, but that they are opposed to the construction of a border wall.

Democrats have argued that a wall is unnecessary along the entire length of the border and some have said they are willing to erect fencing or some other kind of barrier. But Democrats have also pushed for investing more in hiring Border Patrol officers, immigration judges to handle a massive backlog of cases and technology like drones to monitor the border. Pelosi has called Trump's proposed border wall immoral, while others from her party have characterized it as an ineffective solution to border security and a Trump vanity project.

Trump also went after Pelosi specifically Tuesday morning, rhetorically asking in one tweet why she was still receiving a paycheck during the government shutdown, unlike the 800,000 federal workers who missed paychecks last Friday, a large chunk of whom have been working without pay during the shutdown.

While lawmakers are still receiving paychecks despite the shutdown — thanks to Trump's signature on a Congressional appropriations bill last year — some have said they will forgo their pay or donate it.