There’s not enough Hallmark movies to cover the national depression created by our Lion’ King whose lies keep insisting ‘the sky is falling down’ and that only he as King knows truth.
Although a new year has begun and the Democrats are now in control of the House, the President used a nationally televised Oval Office address Tuesday to rally public support and blame Democrats for a partial government shutdown. It is now in its third week. To escalate public support for building the long promised border wall last night, he described the U.S.-Mexico border as a ‘growing humanitarian and security crisis,’ urging Congress to give him the $5.7 billion he has repeatedly demanded for the wall. He added that the federal government ‘remains shut down for one reason and one reason only: because Democrats will not fund border security.
Responding in their own televised remarks, Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer accused Trump of misrepresenting the situation, urging him to reopen closed government departments and release paychecks for hundreds of thousands of workers.
It has appeared to many that Trump has misused the Oval Office presentation to create fear and divert attention from the turmoil in his administration. Trump had promised Mexico would pay for the wall but when that failed, he is now trying to convince Congress and the rest of us to ‘foot the bill’. Schumer reminded him that American democracy doesn’t work that way. “We don’t govern by temper tantrums,” he said. Pelosi added that the president has “chosen fear” rather than facts in making the case to us who want to start with facts.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce urged Congress and the Trump administration to reopen the government, throwing its support behind a deal that would combine border security measures with protections for “dreamers” brought here illegally as children and those in the temporary protected status program. This had apparently been approved by both houses but rejected by Trump when proposed last year.
Letters from the National Governors Association decried the use of a government shutdown to gain leverage in unresolved policy disagreements. Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, which represents most of the 800,000 affected federal workers, said his members want the shutdown to end but do not want to see Democrats yield to Trump’s demands on the wall. They blame Trump for backing out of a deal that was there that everybody had agreed to, and it did not have to happen. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, told reporters that our responsibility is to do what we think is in the best interest of the American people and the effective and efficient operations of their government.” He does not believe that Trump has the authority to direct the military to construct a border wall without congressional consent, even with an emergency declaration, and could wind up abusing his powers.
Is it sheer folly to think that a Lion King can turn into a democratically elected President?