US President Donald Trump had a heated exchange of words with Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer over the border wall during a meeting at the White House on Tuesday, with both sides showing no signs of compromise, saying they were ready for a government shutdown.
Trump has made securing the country's southern border with Mexico a focal point of his presidency, with plans to beef up border security and create a wall as key components.
"If we don't get what we want one way or the other, whether it's through you, through military, through anything you want to call, I will shut down the government," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office with Congresswoman Pelosi and Senator Schumer sitting by his side along with Vice President Mike Pence.
Pelosi is all set to be the Speaker of the US House of Representatives next month, when the new Congress comes into session.
Trump's meeting with Pelosi and Schumer was part of their plan to discuss about the contentious agenda for the new Congress. Their media interaction, both inside and outside the Oval Office in the White House, reflected that the two sides are unwilling to budge from their stand.
"I am proud to shut down the government for border security, Chuck, because the people of this country don't want criminals and people that have lots of problems and drugs pouring into our country.
"So I will take the mantle. I will be the one to shut it down. I'm not going to blame you for it. The last time you shut it down, it didn't work. I will take the mantle of shutting down. and I'm going to shut it down for border security," Trump told Schumer and Pelosi, in front of a battery of White House reporters.
Also Read
Schumer alleged that it was Trump who was threatening a government shutdown. Pelosi described it as a Trump shutdown.
"Unfortunately, this has spiraled downward. You will not win," Pelosi told Trump.
"We think you shouldn't shut it down. One thing that I think we can agree on is we shouldn't shut down the government over a dispute, and you want to shut it down," Schumer told Trump.
Later, he told reporters inside the White House that the Democrats are not going to agree to fund the border wall as being demanded by Trump. And the Democrats are ready for a government shutdown if it leads to that.
"This Trump shutdown, this temper tantrum... It's hard to believe that he would want that," Pelosi said.
"We gave the President two options that would keep the government open. It's his choice to accept one of those options or shut the government down," Pelosi and Schumer said in a joint statement.
Trump insisted that he is determined to build the border wall.
"We're going to see, but I will tell you the wall will get built. We'll see what happens. It's not an easy situation because the Democrats have a different view I think that I can say from the Republicans. We have great Republican support. We don't have Democrat support, but we're going to talk about that now. We're going to see," he said.
"One thing that I do have to say is tremendous amounts of wall have already been built. And a lot of wall when you include the renovation of existing fences and walls, we've renovated a tremendous amount and we've done a lot work in San Diego, we're building new walls right now and right next San Diego, we've completed a major section of wall and it's really worked well," Trump said.
"A lot of wall has been built. We don't talk about that, but we might as well start because it's being built right nw. Big sections of wall, and we will continue that and one way or the other it's going to get built," said the US President.
Disclaimer: No Business Standard Journalist was involved in creation of this content