DEJA VU

Trump: ‘Let’s Have a Shutdown’ If No Immigration Deal

The president said he’d “love to see a shutdown” if a deal can’t be “taken care of.”

As the Congress nears a budget deal to keep the government open to avoid another shutdown, President Trump told reporters that he would “love to see a shutdown” if Congress cannot get a deal on immigration done. He continued, saying “We’ll do a shutdown. And it’s worth it for our country... If we have to shut it down because the Democrats don’t want safety—and unrelated but still related, they don’t want to take care of our military—then shut it down, we’ll go with another shutdown.” Hours later, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders clarified that “The president was not advocating for the shutdown,” despite his own words. This was the second time in as many days that the White House has had to clean up for the president either “joking” (about Democrats being “treasonous”) or advocating for a shutdown he supposedly wasn’t advocating for.