Given the choice to negotiate a trade deal with China or border funding with leading US Democrats, US President Donald Trump said, “I find China, frankly, in many ways to be far more honorable than Cryin’ Chuck and Nancy.”
«I think that China is actually much easier to deal with than the opposition party,» the president said Thursday morning.
The Democratic and Republican leadership got nowhere in Wednesday’s meeting on border wall funding and the ongoing government shutdown. Trump refused further discussions with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) after the duo told him they still would not approve $5 billion for the border wall in their Situation Room meeting. «Bye-bye,» Trump recalled telling the Democrats in a tweet.
«He thinks maybe they could just ask their father for more money,» Pelosi said of federal workers who will miss paychecks during the shutdown, referring to Trump’s silver-spoon upbringing. «But they can’t.»
The partial shutdown entered day 20 Thursday. On Friday, a substantial share of the federal workforce will not receive paychecks as a result of the shutdown — which, on a technical level, has resulted from Congress not passing an appropriations bill the White House is willing to sign.
In budgetary terms, the $5.7 billion sum Trump seeks is a miniscule fraction of the $1.4 trillion that’s been allocated to the Department of Defense over the past two years.
In the first three months of the 2019 fiscal year, which started October 1,2018, federal spending exceeded revenue by $317 billion, the Congressional Budget Office reported Tuesday.
