It’s official.
The federal government shut down this week over budget battles between President Trump and Congressional Democrats.
And Chuck Schumer took to the Senate floor this weekend to demand Trump’s surrender on his signature campaign promise.
When President Trump was elected in 2016, he promised to build a wall along the southern border with Mexico.
This campaign promise was one of the key reasons he won a crowded Republican primary field and eventually defeated Hillary Clinton.
Since taking office, President Trump has been unable to see this signature campaign promise through because of opposition within Congress to securing the border.
This month however, the President made his stand.
Promising to veto any budget bill, as well as any Democratic-backed bills unless Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi agree to build the wall, President Trump called the Democrats’ bluff.
And now, the federal government has shut down as neither Trump nor Schumer refuse to budge.
Hoping for the President to cave, Schumer took to the Senate floor this weekend and gave a speech demanding the President’s surrender on this key campaign promise.
“Abandon your shutdown strategy. You’re not getting the wall today, next week, or on January 3 when Democrats take control of the House,” Schumer said.
The leader of the Senate Democrats blasted Trump, aiming to bully the President into backing down before Democrats take over the House in January.
But Trump has so far refused to do so.
The President tweeted on Christmas Eve that, “I am all alone (poor me) in the White House waiting for the Democrats to come back and make a deal on desperately needed Border Security. At some point the Democrats not wanting to make a deal will cost our Country more money than the Border Wall we are all talking about. Crazy!”
Trump has shown that he’s not willing to cave to Democrats, who have now worked to hold the federal government hostage in the hopes that the President will abandon his hope to secure the southern border.
Breitbart reports, “Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) stated that President Trump’s border wall “does not have 60 votes here in the Senate, let alone 50 votes.””
Even so, the President seems to be charging ahead with his plans to construct a wall along the Mexican border.
In a second Christmas Eve tweet, the President wrote, “I am in the Oval Office & just gave out a 115 mile long contract for another large section of the Wall in Texas.”
“We are already building and renovating many miles of Wall, some complete. Democrats must end Shutdown and finish funding. Billions of Dollars, & lives, will be saved!” Trump concludes.
With neither President Trump nor Congressional Democrats appearing to flinch, the question now is over who will blink first.
Schumer made it clear that he will block any vote to pass a wall through the Senate, which requires 60 votes for any new appropriation bill to pass.
This means 9 Democrats would have to cross over to support the wall, which appears unlikely.
Meanwhile, Nancy Pelosi has already promised to keep the federal government “closed forever” if that’s what it takes to keep the wall from passing.
With Democrats set to take the House in January, it’s unclear whether the wall will get through and how the budget crisis will be resolved.
We will keep you up to date on any new developments in this ongoing story.
