President Donald Trump told hundreds of state, local and community leaders on a conference call Tuesday – four separate times – that he is prepared to ride out a lengthy government shutdown and won’t reopen a long list of unfunded agencies until Congress appropriates money for his long-promised border wall.
‘We’re not going back until it’s over. We’re going to build this wall. It’s going to happen,’ the president said.
‘If we just stick together, we’re going to win. Because we’re not going back until it’s – until the Democrats do what they know they have to do,’ he urged later.
The White House’s Office of Political Affairs organized the call Monday with invitations to the 2:30 p.m. Tuesday event, which lasted less than 14 minutes.
It was promoted as a briefing ‘not intended for press purposes,’ and a call moderator declared at the beginning that it was ‘not on the record.’ DailyMail.com did not participate in or listen to the call in real-time. A registered participant provided audio afterward.
President Donald Trump told supporters in a conference call on Tuesday that he’s ready to keep the federal government closed indefinitely unless Democrats find his southern border barrier: ‘We’re not going back till it’s over! We’re going to build this wall!’
The president is demanding $5.7 billion from Congress to continue the construction of a U.S.-Mexico border wall, an idea that Democrats on Capitol Hill show no interest in helping with
‘We need unity. We’re going to stay out for a long time if we have to. We’ll be out for a long time,’ Trump said on the call, insisting that ‘government’s working well’ despite the loss of about 380,000 workers and the frustrations of another 400,000 who are perofrming their mission-critical duties without pay.
‘We really appreciate the people that have sacrificed so much. And they’re not being paid right now because of the Democrats,’ he said.
Trump also declared that Republicans in Congress are marching in lockstep: ‘I have had nobody call up and say, “Gee, let’s go back”.’
He lapsed at one point into his campaign-year rhetoric, claiming migrants who stream north from Central America toward the U.S.-Mexico border aren’t refugees, but the equivalent of economic sponges.
‘This has very little to do with fear. This has to do with economics,’ he said, dismissing the ‘fear’ claims of asylum-seekers.
‘People are coming up, and in many cases they’re not working. They’re coming up to enjoy the fruits of a system that too a long time to build, that’ll collapse under the weight of the millions of people that want to pour in,’ he said.
Illinois Rep. Rodney Davis and other House Republicans spoke to the media after meeting meeting with Trump about funding for the border wall and ending the partial government shutdown
Davis showed off a copy of a White House handout, which matched almost exactly a fact sheet the president’s team sent to reporters on January 8
The call came after a meeting between Trump and House Republicans, after an attempt at a bipartisan negotiating session fell apart. Democrats declined the invitation.
GOP members strode out of the West Wing, eager to talk to reporters, with one clutching a handout boasting of Trump’s tough-as-nails border security positions.
The sheet matched nearly identically one that the White House sent to reporters a full week ago, suggesting the president’s team hasn’t changed its messaging much since the partial governnt shutdown began 25 days ago.
Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen introduced the president minutes later on the conference call; no one else spoke other than Trump’s Arizona law-enforcement guest. Dial-in participants were locked in ‘listen-only mode.’
‘Stay together. Be unified. We’re not going back until we get what we have to get,’ they heard Trump say, while insisting that ‘the Republican Senate and the Republican House, members of whom I just left, are totally united for the sake of safety for our nation.’
Trump mused that ‘maybe it’ll be 100 to nothing someday in Congress, and I guess I’ll just sort of sit back and say, “Well, they’re going to get it.” But I don’t think so.’
‘We’ll get this up, we’ll get it up fast, and it’ll be like a different day,’ he said finally, of his controversial border barrier.
‘Stay together, we’re going to win, we’re not going back until it’s over. We’re going to build this wall. It’s going to happen. I’ve been promising. It has nothing to do with a campaign promise. It has to do with the fact that we need this for our country.’
It’s unclear how many people listened to Trump and an Arizona sheriff on the call. DailyMail.com’s source said an automated system advised at the time his call connected that the number was in the hundreds.
The White House’s published schedule for Tuesday described the event as ‘a briefing call on the border crisis with State, local, and community leaders’ and said Trump would participate.
A White House spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.