Trump: My wall is a 'higher purpose than next week's pay' for workers

Trump rambled through a long and disjointed press conference Friday, once again taking ownership of the government shutdown he engineered while insisting that the federal workers he refuses to pay are backing his unpopular obsession.

Hundreds of thousands of federal workers are slated to miss their upcoming paychecks thanks to Trump’s actions. But instead of doing right by them, Trump insisted that the workers are happy to go without their salaries because erecting the wall serves a “higher purpose.”

“So this really does have a higher purpose than next week’s pay,” Trump told reporters. “And the people that won’t get next week’s pay, or the following week’s pay — I think if you ever really looked at those people, I think they’d say, Mr. President, keep going. This is far more important.”

In fact, federal workers have been vocal about opposing the shutdown and decrying how it has affected their families. They say Trump “only cares about himself” and not about the effects of the shutdown on thousands of federal workers, their families, and the billions in business transactions relying on them.

Trump also confirmed that he told House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) he is willing to keep the government closed for “years” unless he gets his way.

And, as he said in December before shutting down the government, Trump said he is “proud” to shut down the federal government and reiterated his demand for taxpayers to put up billions of dollars to finance the construction of a useless border wall.

The shutdown is an unpopular, Trump-created disaster being felt across America. It is unnecessary, cruel, and dangerous — and his delusional comments about how it could last for years are divorced from reality.

Thousands of federal workers — taxpaying Americans — are being hurt by his behavior, and not only does he not care, but he’s “proud” of it.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.