Donald Trump is stuck living in a “cocoon of his own mistruth,” one of his chief political opponents said.
On Wednesday, Chuck Schumer laid into Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, pleading with him to talk some sense into the president. On the floor of the Senate, Schumer said that Trump is steering the federal government toward a shutdown in response to not getting funding for his border wall — and called on McConnell to avert the unnecessary crisis.
“Leader McConnell says he doesn’t want a shutdown, but he refuses to engage with the president to tell him what is transparently obvious to everyone else — there will be no additional money for the wall,” Schumer said, via the New York Post .
His statements came a day after a contentious televised meeting between Trump and the Democratic leaders of Congress, Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi. During the meeting, Pelosi told Trump that he did not have the votes even among Republicans to get the $5 billion in border wall funding he was seeking, and Trump promised that he would shut down the government.
In his statements, Schumer said that Trump lives in a “cocoon of his own mistruth,” and that during the meeting, he and Pelosi “had to puncture that cocoon and he threw a temper tantrum because of it.”
Chuck Schumer is not the only one contending that Trump lives in a political world separate from reality. This week, NPR fact-checked Trump’s statement that “tremendous amounts of wall have already been built,” pointing out that it is not true.
“Despite Republican majorities in both houses of Congress, lawmakers have not approved such funding.” the report noted. “In 2017, the president managed to secure about $1.6 billion for border protection projects, but they are primarily for fortifying existing border fencing, not expanding the current wall.”
Others, including Schumer and other Democratic leaders, have also pointed out that Trump repeatedly said during the 2016 presidential campaign that he would make Mexico pay for the wall.
Here’s how we got from President Trump’s campaign pledge that Mexico would pay for the border wall, to his latest shutdown pledge, asking US taxpayers to foot the bill https://t.co/YgoAUTUhr4
— CNN (@CNN) December 12, 2018
But there is still a chance that the border wall could be coming. As the Hill noted, House Republicans are considering bringing legislation to the floor to add $5 billion in funding for the wall, though it is not clear if they have the votes necessary — even within the Republican caucus — to pass the legislation.
If there is no new funding for the border wall, Donald Trump’s threat of a government shutdown could come true just before Christmas. A partial shutdown would start on December 21, the report noted.
