In an interview airing today, Face the Nation host Margaret Brennan sat down with Donald Trump, starting off by asking the president if he would consider another government shutdown in the wake of the most recent one that caused chaos over 35 days.
The president initially took a “wait and see” approach, saying, “we’re going to have to see what happens on February 15th.”
When pressed by Brennan if the president was willing to take another shutdown over him getting funding for his southern border wall between the United States and Mexico off the table, the president was much clearer.
“Well, I don’t — I don’t take anything off the table,” said Trump. “I don’t like to take things off the table. It’s that alternative. It’s national emergency, it’s other things and you know there have been plenty national emergencies called.”
“This really is an invasion of our country by human traffickers,” continued the President. “These are people that are horrible people bringing in women mostly, but bringing in women and children into our country. Human trafficking. And we’re going to have a strong border. And the only way you have a strong border is you need a physical barrier. You need a wall. And anybody that says you don’t, they’re just playing games.”
The president also struck a defiant tone about the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi.
“I think that she was very rigid — which I would expect — but I think she is very bad for our country,” Trump said. “She knows that you need a barrier. She knows that we need border security. She wanted to win a political point. I happen to think it’s very bad politics because basically she wants open borders. She doesn’t mind human trafficking or she wouldn’t do this.”
Brennan reminded the president that Pelosi offered over one billion dollars for border security, but without Trump’s wall, to which Trump claimed Pelosi is costing the United States hundreds of billions.
“She’s costing the country hundreds of billions of dollars because what’s happening is when you have a porous border, and when you have drugs pouring in, and when you have people dying all over the country because of people like Nancy Pelosi who don’t want to give proper border security for political reasons, she’s doing a terrible disservice to our country,” said Trump. “And on the 15th we have now set the table beautifully because everybody knows what’s going on because of the shutdown. People that didn’t have any idea — they didn’t have a clue as to what was happening, they now know exactly what’s happening. They see human trafficking. They see drugs and gangs and criminals pouring in. Now, we catch them because we’re doing a great job. But if we had proper border security, we wouldn’t have to work so hard and we could do an even better job, and I think Nancy Pelosi is doing a terrible disservice to the people of our country.”
When Brennan reminded Trump that he would, nevertheless, have to make a deal with Pelosi, Trump remained argumentative.
“No, she can keep playing her games, but we will win. Because we have a much better issue. On a political basis, what she’s doing is — I actually think it’s bad politics, but much more importantly it’s very bad for our country,” said Trump.
View an excerpt from the interview below:
Image via screen capture from video source.