RNA - Trump has said he would “totally be willing” to shut down the federal government unless Congress authorizes $5 billion to fund his long-promised wall along the US-Mexico border.
In an interview with Politico published on Wednesday, Trump said the $5 billion request for funding the border would pay for a physical barrier alone, and that additional funding would be needed for other border security measures.
Trump also told the news outlet that he saw little need to work with Congress over immigration reforms to address the roughly 700,000 so-called Dreamers, young adults who were brought to the United States illegally as children.
Hoenig, a former Green Party candidate for Congress, said that “Trump is once again trying to promote his own racist ideology by threatening a shutdown of the US government if Congress doesn’t appropriate funds for his wall.”
“This wall dividing Americans and people of color from south of the border has been a wedge issue for him as long as he was running for president and attempting to maintain a hold on his government. Trump has a very long personal history of racism and now that he’s president he has to power to truly act on it,” he said.
“Earlier his racist behavior involved him being a landlord and cheating his tenants. As early as 1973 he and his KKK member father had been sued in federal court for anti-black bias as a landlord. In 1989 he waged a campaign against 5 blacks falsely accused of rape in Central Park New York, who were convicted and spent time in jail. As recently as 2011 Trump was promoting the ‘birther’ conspiracy, saying that President Obama was really born in Kenya and therefore an illegitimate president,” he stated.
“Now that he’s president he has greater tools at his disposal to act on his racist views. We’ve seen him send the military to the border to prevent asylum seekers from entering the country, which in itself is a violation of international law. Just recently his military attacked women and children in Mexico with tear gas, another international crime,” he said.
“With this most recent threat to shut down the border if Congress doesn’t authorized the funds to build his wall, Trump is showing how much in control he is in dealing with immigration. Although there have been some successful challenges to him over this in the courts, he has Democratic leaders willing to do his racist bidding, as Sen. Schumer of NY has already pledged to put up some of the money he’s asking for,” he noted.
“Trump has threatened to shut down the government over the wall funding in the past but never followed through. With the Mueller investigation tightening the noose around the Trump family and friends, he’s likely feeling licensed to do whatever is necessary to divert attention, and re-focusing on immigration is one way,” the analyst concluded.
According to Press TV, Robert S. Mueller was appointed by the US Justice Department to lead the investigation into alleged Russian intervention in the 2016 presidential election a week after Trump had fired FBI Director James Comey, who was leading a federal investigation into possible collusion with Russia.
Trump initially said he had fired Comey because his leadership of the FBI was inadequate and hurt morale, but in a later interview with NBC he cited “this Russia thing” as his reason.
On Thursday, Michael Cohen, Trump's former personal attorney, reached a deal with Mueller, and pleaded guilty for misstatements he made to Congress while testifying about his contacts with Russians during the presidential campaign.
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