WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump on Tuesday said the partial shutdown of the federal government was going to last until his demand for funds to build a US-Mexico border wall is met.
“I can’t tell you when the government is going to reopen,” Trump said, speaking after a Christmas Day video conference with U.S. troops serving abroad. “I can tell you it’s not going to reopen until we have a wall, a fence, whatever they’d like to call it. I’ll call it whatever they want, but it’s all the same thing. It’s a barrier from people pouring into the country, from drugs.”
He added: “If you don’t have that (the wall), then we’re just not opening.”
Funding for about a quarter of federal programs — including the departments of Homeland Security, Justice and Agriculture — expired at midnight on Friday.
