On the recordJanuary 11, 2019
this shutdown is not a negotiation situation. This is a hostage situation. For the past 3 weeks, Donald Trump has held 800,000 Federal workers, tens of thousands of Federal contractors, and thousands of small businesses hostage to extort money for his vanity wall under the pretext of an emergency at our southern border. Today, hundreds of thousands of hard-working civil servants felt the pain of missing a paycheck because this amoral, hostage-taking President is continuing to throw a temper tantrum. Most of us live in the real world, where paychecks are needed to keep a roof over our heads and food on our table. Growing up, my mother was the sole breadwinner for three of us kids. It would have been unthinkable, disastrous, for our family to miss even one paycheck from her low-wage job. When the President says that he can relate to the hundreds of thousands of families going without a paycheck, who does he think he is kidding? Most people don't have daddies, as he did, to bail them out time and again by the millions. Enough said about a President who does not feel your or anybody else's pain--we can't look to him for leadership, moral or otherwise. One person who can enable the Congress to end the shutdown is Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. All he has to do is to bring up the bills that the House sent us last week--the same bills that passed the Senate and last Congress to keep government open.…
