President Trump says the partial government shutdown was worth it to show the world the urgency of the crisis at the southern border.
During his first campaign rally of the 2020 election cycle Monday night, Mr. Trump told a cheering audience in El Paso, Texas, that the 35-day shutdown last month was worth a temporary increase in the nation’s unemployment rate.
“We had a little blip [in the unemployment rate] because of a thing called the shutdown,” Mr. Trump said. “But remember this … if we didn’t do that shutdown, we would not have been able to show this country, these politicians, the world, what the hell is happening with the border.”
He added, “That was a very important thing we did.”
Congressional negotiators say they have a tentative deal to avoid another shutdown before their Friday deadline. It would include nearly $1.4 billion for building border barriers.
About 800,000 federal workers weren’t paid during the shutdown.
• Dave Boyer can be reached at dboyer@washingtontimes.com.
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