U.S. troops begin withdrawing from Syria

OAN Newsroom
UPDATED 8:01 AM PT — Friday, January 11, 2019

The U.S. is reportedly beginning the process of withdrawing troops from Syria. While he didn’t release details, a U.S. military official recently said equipment is being removed from the region.
This comes just three-weeks after President Trump announced he is bringing troops home. Stalling the process were fears about Turkey invading territory held by Kurdish allies to the U.S., and leaving a power vacuum in the war-torn country. However, the Kurds reached out to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for help.

FILE – In this Wednesday, April 4, 2018 file photo, a U.S. soldier, left, sits on an armored vehicle behind a sand barrier at a newly installed position near the front line between the U.S-backed Syrian Manbij Military Council and the Turkish-backed fighters, in Manbij, north Syria. An American military official said Friday, Jan. 11, 2019 that the U.S.-led military coalition has begun the process of withdrawing troops from Syria. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla, File)

International players in the conflict have been in talks about the future of former U.S. territory in Syria. Russia is mediating talks between the Syrian government and the Kurds to ensure a smooth transition when U.S. troops leave the region.
While speaking to reporters Friday, a spokesperson for Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said establishing dialogue is vital to maintaining peace.The spokesperson also urged the U.S. to hand over its territory to Assad amid threats from Turkey of a possible attack on Kurds in the region.
However, Moscow has not officially picked a side in the brewing conflict as Russian President Vladimir Putin prepares to meet with his Turkish counterpart later this month.
National Security Advisor John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have both visited countries in the region to explain the shift in U.S. policy.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, other Dems want you to embrace a socialist agenda – Here are 4 glaring examples

For decades, the Democratic Party has been steadily moving away from its roots as America’s self-proclaimed champion of the middle class, instead choosing to embrace radical identity politics and a socialist agenda. Democrats are quickly becoming the party of Karl Marx and Che Guevara, not John Kennedy.
The rise of the far left in the Democratic Party has perhaps never been more evident than since Democrats recaptured the House of Representatives in the November 2018 midterm elections. The following are just some of the most socialistic and radical plans now garnering significant support among Democrats in Congress.
Government-run, single-payer health care.
Rep. John Yarmouth, D-Ky., the chairman of the powerful House Budget Committee, recently issued a request to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to conduct an analysis of the costs of transforming the United States’ current health insurance system into a government-run, single-payer model – the plan embraced by Senators Cory Booker, D-N.J., Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and self-described socialist Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. Yarmouth’s request is a signal that Democrats are in the early stages of preparing for a future vote on single-payer legislation.
AMERICA'S PROGRESSIVES ARE SO BUSY EXTOLLING VIRTUES OF SOCIALISM THAT THEY WANT YOU TO IGNORE THIS
A single-payer program in line with Sen. Sanders’ “Medicare for All” proposal would cost $32 trillion in its first 10 years, according to an analysis by the Mercatus Center – an amount so high Mercatus estimates that doubling existing individual and corporate taxes wouldn’t be enough to cover the costs.
Not only would putting the government in charge of health care cost trillions of dollars, but it would also force Americans to endure many of the same problems plaguing government-run health care models around the world, including long wait times for patients and rationing of care. The Fraser Institute reports that patients in Canada, which has a single-payer health care model, who require “medically necessary elective orthopedic surgery” wait on average 41.7 weeks – about 10 months – before receiving treatment. Patients requiring elective neurosurgery, including many patients who have brain tumors, wait 32.9 weeks.
If Democrats have it their way, Americans will be subjected to similar problems, and millions of people will inevitably suffer as a result.
The elimination of all fossil fuels; socialized energy.
One of the Democrats’ most controversial and destructive proposals is newly-elected Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s, D-N.Y., “Green New Deal.” This far-reaching plan would eliminate all fossil fuels by 2030, including from agriculture, manufacturing, transportation, and the entire electric grid.
Ending the fossil-fuel industry would potentially destroy millions of jobs and require an unprecedented investment in expensive and unreliable renewable energy sources like wind and solar power generation. Even worse, because wind and solar cost two to five times more than existing conventional energy sources, requiring huge sectors of the economy to rely on these renewables would increase the cost of all goods and services and drive countless businesses out of the country.
The “Green New Deal” doesn’t stop there, however. It would also socialize much of the newly-created renewable energy industry and require “upgrades” to nearly every building in the country – a provision that would likely cost trillions of dollars and insert the federal government into every American’s home.
Massive tax increases.
Rep. Ocasio-Cortez has called for increasing the top marginal tax rate for some wealthy Americans to as high as 70 percent. If enacted, Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist says it would be the highest tax rate in the industrialized world.
Democrats have also proposed a dramatic increase to America’s corporate tax rate. Rep. Yarmouth has said he favors raising the corporate rate from 21 percent to 28 percent – a 33 percent increase. This would be one of the largest corporate tax hikes in recent history, and it would roll back much of the reduction to the corporate tax rate passed by Republicans and President Donald Trump as part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.
Those tax cuts, coupled with the Trump administration’s regulatory rollbacks, have spurred remarkable economic growth in the United States. According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, more than 2.8 million full-time jobs were created from January 2018 to December 2018 – 688,000 more than the number of jobs created during the same period in 2017.
Increasing tax rates on corporations would likely cause a substantial economic slowdown and might even cause corporations that have expanded their operations to lay off newly-hired workers.
Abolishing the electoral college.
Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., introduced legislation to create a constitutional amendment that would eliminate the electoral college system and replace it with a model based entirely on the outcome of the national popular vote. (Democratic presidential candidates Al Gore (2000) and Hillary Clinton (2016) both won the popular vote but lost the presidential election because their challengers won more electoral college votes.)
The electoral college system for electing presidents is an essential part of our federalist system of government and was a key component to the passage of the Constitution in 1787. The electoral college enhances the power of voters in smaller states. Without the electoral college, voters in a handful of highly populated states would have significantly more power to determine the outcome of every presidential election, which is exactly what Democrats want. About three in 10 votes cast in the 2016 election occurred in just seven Democratic-leaning states: California, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Virginia and Washington State.
If the electoral college is abolished, voters in much of the Midwest, South and Mountain West regions – especially in rural areas – will be ignored in future presidential elections.
Together, these proposals represent a remarkable shift toward socialism and the centralization of power, and away from the principles that have made the United States the most prosperous, successful nation in human history: individual liberty and free markets.
Americans everywhere must stand against these radical ideas. If we don’t, the United States will, over the next few decades, begin to look increasingly more like the Soviet Union and less like the country created by our Founding Fathers.

Michael Cohen, seeking vindication, can’t use most ammunition against Trump

Some journalists are already touting Michael Cohen as the next John Dean, casting his upcoming congressional testimony as nothing short of historic.
But they are probably jacking up expectations too high.
While President Trump’s former personal lawyer turning on him before a House committee will be a television spectacle, Cohen’s allies say he will testify under great constraints.
The larger story, they say, is how this man who tied himself so closely to Trump has been utterly devastated—and is, in a sense, seeking redemption.
Cohen is flat broke. His wife and family are under enormous emotional strain. He is getting surgery a week before his testimony for a bone spur in his shoulder that has left him unable to lift his arm. The family is living in a hotel room with insurance payments following a flood at their home.
And a month after his Feb. 7 Hill appearance, Cohen reports to prison for three years.
In short, these sources say, Cohen will offer compelling testimony, but those who expect him to be able to fire a silver bullet that would bring down the president are going to be sorely disappointed. Cohen may have important new information that he has disclosed to Robert Mueller in 70 hours of interviews with prosecutors, but if so, he won’t be able to reveal it.
The major limitation, as Cohen has said, is that he can’t discuss anything still under investigation by the special counsel. That means Cohen, who is still hoping for a reduction in his sentence, can’t answer questions about Russian collusion or the proposed real estate project in Moscow. It also means he can’t address the 2016 Trump Tower meeting between Paul Manafort, Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and a Russian lawyer (who was recently indicted on money-laundering charges).
“I expect Michael’s testimony will be personal, not partisan, and compelling,” Lanny Davis, again acting as Cohen’s attorney, told me. “He will describe what he did for Mr. Trump for 10 years that he now looks back on, as stated in court, with shame and regret. And he will explain what caused him, on July 2, 2018, to turn and put his family and country first; recognizing the dangers to the country in Mr. Trump’s misconduct and reckless behavior.”
In the interview, Davis implied a further reason for Cohen’s desire to testify.
Given the fraud and lying charges in the two Cohen guilty pleas, Davis said he “and many others believe the length of incarceration time, compared to others who committed far worse offenses, is disproportionately excessive and unjust. I hope someone in the Justice Department focuses on the word ‘justice’ when assessing the fairness of Michael’s three-year prison term. What they need to ask themselves is, would he have received this time if he had been someone who didn’t work for Donald Trump?”
The contours of the testimony are likely to frustrate Republican members of the oversight committee, now chaired by Democrat Elijah Cummings. Some may ask why Cohen is there if he is unable to answer questions on such vital topics.
What’s more, they will point out that Cohen is an acknowledged liar and ask why he should still be viewed as credible.
The New York lawyer wants to explain why he went to work for Trump, why he is ashamed of having worked for Trump, and how he made the decision last July to turn on his longtime benefactor, who has called him a “weak person” and a “rat.”
Part of that explanation will focus on Cohen’s view that while certain behavior might be tolerable in a private businessman, the standards are very different when that person becomes president.
Cohen will offer personal anecdotes about his service to Trump and what he has termed his complicity in “dirty deeds,” the sources say. These would likely be unflattering blasts from the past but could have little to do with his record as president.
The one area in which Cohen may shed some light, since it’s part of the public record, is on the hush money payments to former porn star Stormy Daniels and ex-Playboy model Karen McDougal. Cohen has already said he was doing Trump’s bidding in both cases—the lawyer paid Daniels $130,000 and was reimbursed by the boss—but could fill in key details under questioning.
Dean, who was Richard Nixon’s White House counsel, broke open the Watergate coverup with his Senate testimony and wound up spending four months in jail. But he knew that conspiracy from the inside because he was a willing participant before turning against Nixon.
Cohen, having never gotten the White House job he wanted, is not in a similar position, no matter how much media hype surrounds his testimony. But like John Dean, he appears to view the appearance as a final chance to vindicate his reputation before heading off to prison.
“My heart goes out to Michael and his family,” Davis told me. “They are under great duress and strain.”

White House slams Comey, McCabe after report that FBI launched probe of Trump after Comey ouster

The White House lashed out against “disgraced partisan hack” James Comey and “known liar” Andrew McCabe on Friday after a report that the FBI -- after President Trump fired Comey as the bureau's director -- opened a secret inquiry into whether Trump had been working on behalf of Russia against American interests.
The investigators working on the inquiry had to assess whether Trump’s actions could constitute a possible national security threat. The agency tried to determine whether the president was working for Russia or had fallen under the Kremlin’s influence, the New York Times reported.
The probe into Trump also looked into possible criminality, in particular the May 2017 firing of Comey and whether that could be deemed an obstruction of justice.
The White House immediately pushed back against the report, calling the insinuations of working for Russia “absurd” and pointed to the administration's record toward Russia.

"This is absurd. James Comey was fired because he's a disgraced partisan hack, and his Deputy Andrew McCabe, who was in charge at the time, is a known liar fired by the FBI."
— White House press secretary Sarah Sanders

“This is absurd. James Comey was fired because he's a disgraced partisan hack, and his Deputy Andrew McCabe, who was in charge at the time, is a known liar fired by the FBI,” White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement.
“Unlike President Obama, who let Russia and other foreign adversaries push American around, President Trump has actually been tough on Russia,” she added.
The allegation of the FBI opening a counterintelligence investigation into Trump may cause a further rift between the bureau and the president, who in the past has criticized the agency’s senior leadership, alleging an anti-Trump bias.
Among those FBI officials accused of bias were former senior counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok, who was fired amid revelations of his anti-Trump and pro-Hillary Clinton text messages with another FBI official, Lisa Page.
McCabe, a former FBI deputy director, meanwhile, was fired in March ahead of his planned retirement following a bombshell report by Justice Department Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz that claimed McCabe lied to investigators and his then-boss Comey at least four times, three of them under oath.
The former deputy director reportedly authorized a leak to a newspaper reporter about the contents of a telephone call on August 2016 in order cast himself in a positive light in an upcoming story about an investigation involving Hillary Clinton.
According to the Times, senior FBI officials became suspicious of Trump and his alleged ties to Russia during the 2016 presidential campaign but decided not to pursue an investigation at the time. The president’s decisions and the firing of Comey prompted the agency to launch the inquiry.
The FBI investigation has since been taken over by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is examining the possibility of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. There’s no indication that Mueller is continuing to pursue the counterintelligence matter.
Former law enforcement officials told the newspaper that the criminal and counterintelligence elements of the investigation were combined because Trump’s firing of the FBI director could constitute both a crime and a national security threat as it would hinder the agency’s abilities to learn how the Kremlin interfered in the 2016 election.
“Not only would it be an issue of obstructing an investigation, but the obstruction itself would hurt our ability to figure out what the Russians had done, and that is what would be the threat to national security,” James A. Baker, who served as FBI general counsel until late 2017, said during private testimony before House investigators in October, according to the Times.

Mexican Cartel Cartoons

Democrats and many Republicans will explode if Trump bypasses Congress with emergency order

Chad Pergram

The good news is that the sides were at least talking when it came to the government shutdown over the weekend.
The dialogue abruptly fell silent Wednesday.
"It's cold out here and the temperature wasn't much warmer in the Situation Room," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. "Our meeting did not last long."
The mercury plunged in Washington as Pelosi emerged from a conclave at the White House. A cold front pushed through the region, spinning up snow squalls. A gale roared down Pennsylvania Avenue.
There were no real talks over the holidays on the government shutdown. It took two weeks to even have much of a conversation. President Trump huddled with top Congressional leaders a week ago. And then they empaneled a "working group" to continue to the discourse last weekend.
But it was not a "finishing group."
Everyone in Washington knew the conclave of bicameral, bipartisan leadership aides huddling with Vice President Pence wouldn't get far in their efforts to end the government shutdown.
The universe of people involved was too big. Moreover, such discussions require the principals at the table. These aides weren't deputized by their bosses to cut a deal. They would have to kick this to the next level if they were to forge an accord.
President Trump and Pence lunched at the Capitol with Senate Republicans Wednesday before hoofing it back to the White House to meet with the "Big 8," the top leaders of both parties from both the House and Senate. But that meeting was over before it started. When Pelosi returned to the Capitol, she punctured the typical politesse of such high-level meetings, characterizing Trump as "a petulant President of the United States."
For the record, the president has yet to bestow the speaker with a nickname. But the government shutdown is only in Day 21…..
Trump maintains the option to declare a "national emergency" on the border and go around Congress. Meantime, Congressional Republicans want a wall. But lawmakers of both parties guard their Constitutional prerogatives closely. Under the National Emergencies Act of 1976, Trump could conceivably bypass Congress by trumpeting a need at the border. The law allows the president to spend "unobligated" funds in what's called the Military Construction Appropriations Bill. Military Construction, or "MilCon," in Washington-ese, is one of the five spending measures Congress and the president agreed to in the fall. Thus, Trump would have to declare a "national emergency" to redistribute money in the MilCon bill for purposes besides those Congress deemed necessary.
The administration fishing around various federal accounts is beginning to tick off lawmakers.
"I am opposed to using national defense funds for anything else," said Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, the top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee. Fox confirmed that the administration has inquired about pilfering supplemental spending funds Congress approved in February 2018 to mitigate wildfires in California and a spate of hurricanes which ravaged Florida, Texas, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
The non-voting, Republican "Resident Commissioner" to Congress from Puerto Rico, Rep. Jenniffer Gonzalez Colon, R-PR, said Puerto Rico is being "treated with total inequality." Gonzalez Colon said raiding the relief ledger is "unacceptable and I will not support the reallocation of funds." She added that Puerto Rico has "not received the disbursement of funds after more than a year" following Hurricane Maria.
Congressional Democrats and many Republicans will explode if the president declares a national emergency and bypasses Congress. Republicans heaped criticism repeatedly on President Obama for what they viewed as his abuse of executive authority. Former House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., implored Congressional Republicans to "reclaim" their Article I powers under the Constitution. It’s worth watching to see if some Congressional Republicans give Trump a pass.
That said, all administrations test the limits of executive power. President Harry Truman tried to federalize the steel industry during the Korean War. Truman's attempted use of federal, emergency powers prompted one of the five most consequential rulings in the history of the Supreme Court: Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, colloquially known as the “Youngstown Steel Case.” The High Court delivered what was described as a "stinging rebuff" to Truman over overstepping his Constitutional grounds.
Obama pushed the envelope with recess appointments. The Constitution requires the House and Senate to meet at three-day intervals. The Senate often just gavels in and gavels out after a few seconds when it’s trying to do the bare minimum to meet Constitutional standards.
Obama grew frustrated with the Senate not confirming some of his nominees. So the president short-circuited the Senate’s confirmation process, making appointments to the National Labor Relations Board during one of those short Senate windows. The Supreme Court rejected Obama’s interpretation of a recess. The High Court ruled that the executive can't meddle with the privileges of the legislative branch. In other words, if the Senate says it’s in recess, then it’s in recess.
Congressional Republicans have generally shown deference to Trump over many of his decisions. But GOPers flexed their muscles more lately when they think the president made a bad decision or pushed his case too far. Examine the outcry among some Congressional Republicans over how Trump handled Saudi Arabia following the death of Jamal Khashoggi. Trump also fielded GOP criticism after he announced the U.S. was withdrawing from Syria.
Members of Congress guard their Constitutional prerogatives closely. Many won’t be happy about a national emergency to declare a wall.
Moreover, Trump could draw the ire of House and Senate appropriators. It is said there are three types of Members of Congress: Democrats, Republicans and appropriators. Those who control the purse strings could balk if the president leaves tire tracks on their lawn.
There’s also a problem in the House when it comes to re-opening the government. Never before has a government shutdown gravitated from one Congress to another. There are more than 90 new House members. Pelosi is deft when it comes to taking the temperature of her caucus. She knows House Democrats don’t want a wall. But what would they support? The freshmen are so new, it’s not even clear they know what sort of compromise legislation would work. In the past, Pelosi could quickly determine what’s tolerable to her caucus. This could hinder efforts to re-open the government quickly.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., freelanced behind the scenes in recent days to engineer a border agreement alongside an immigration/DACA pact.
"Pelosi has dealt herself out. She is a non-player," proclaimed Graham.
By nightfall Thursday, Graham's aces crumbled. Trump himself personally dealt Graham out, killing the senator’s proposed efforts.
"I've never been more depressed about moving forward than I have right now," said Graham, noting he now supported President Trump going around Congress to build the wall.
House Democrats forged ahead Thursday, passing three individual spending bills to re-open various sections of the federal government. House Democratic Caucus Chairman Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., predicted the bills would marshal "double digits" of Republican defectors.
One bill garnered eight Republicans. Another one ten. A third secured 12 GOP yeas. So far, a Republican insurrection against Trump wasn’t materializing.
“The problem here in the Senate is that (Minority Leader Chuck) Schumer (D-NY) and Pelosi think they’re winning and the President thinks he’s winning,” observed Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL).
So much winning.
And this likely doesn’t get solved until someone feels they’re losing.

Trump calls media 'bonkers' as he pushes his own shutdown narrative

There was a telling moment yesterday when President Trump was pushing back against still more media accounts he views as unfair.
Trump had walked out of a Capitol Hill meeting with Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi, having become convinced that they wouldn't budge on the government shutdown that is now headed toward its fourth week. The Senate minority leader said Trump had slammed the table, and House speaker had publicly called him "a petulant president of the United States." So this wasn't some media concoction, it was on-the-record reporting.
"I didn't pound the table, I didn't raise my voice. That was a lie," Trump told reporters.
He added: "I don't have temper tantrums, I really don't. But it plays to a narrative, but it's a lie."
In saying the story plays to a narrative, the president was acknowledging that his public image is very different than the way he views himself — and, not shockingly, blaming the press. It's usually journalists who talk about narratives, but Trump, of course, is the media critic-in-chief.
In the long run, whether he pounded the table or not is irrelevant. Trump clearly made a hasty exit from the meeting, since by his own account he said "bye-bye" and walked out after Pelosi told him the Democrats wouldn't fund his border wall even if he reopened the government.
Every White House tries to sell a narrative to the public, and that often clashes with the media portrait. But not since the Nixon days has there been such a virulent and relentless battle over which picture is closer to the truth.
In that media availability, Trump said "the news incorrectly reported" the incident. He said he asked Pelosi if they spoke in 30 days, after a government reopening, "are you going to give us great border security, which includes a wall or a steel barrier," and she said no.
"What you should do is give them Pinocchios" — handed out by the Washington Post fact-checker — because Mike Pence and Kevin McCarthy back his account of the meeting, Trump said. But he said the press would stick with "what you guys reported anyway because you're fake news."
The president was on shakier ground when he scolded the press for reporting on something he's said dozens and dozens of times.
"I know the fake news likes to say it," Trump said, that "during the campaign I would say Mexico is going to pay for it. Obviously I never said this and I never meant they're going to write out a check. I said they're going to pay for it."
He flatly made that promise, leaving the impression that the Mexican government would somehow pick up the tab for the border wall. I always thought he would have some kind of accounting explanation if the wall got built. And Trump said the Mexicans are paying for the wall through the "incredible deal we made" on trade, which replaced NAFTA. Of course, the government remains in partial shutdown because of a fight over 5.7 billion American dollars.
The president also tweeted about the leak to The New York Times, which I reported on yesterday, that he'd said he didn't want to give the Oval Office speech but was talked into it by his communications team.
"Gave an OFF THE RECORD luncheon, somewhat of a White House tradition or custom, to network anchors yesterday - and they quickly leaked the contents of the meeting. Who would believe how bad it has gotten with the mainstream media, which has gone totally bonkers!"
Bonkers may be one of the few insults he hasn’t hurled at the media.
But someone in that room did betray him by violating the off-the-record ground rules.
And there was this:
"The Mainstream Media has NEVER been more dishonest than it is now. NBC and MSNBC are going Crazy. They report stories, purposely, the exact opposite of the facts. They are truly the Opposition Party working with the Dems. May even be worse than Fake News CNN, if that is possible!"
The president, as is his wont, conflates many things with his attacks and counterattacks on the press.
He fights back when he has a different version of a closed-door meeting, or when an off-the-record agreement is broken: fair enough. But he also accuses the media of dishonesty for reminding everyone of his campaign vow that "Mexico will pay for it." And he throws in insults — bonkers, crazy, opposition party — that aren't always tied to a specific complaint.
The president and the press remain wedded to their narratives, which all too often are diametrically opposed.

Trump says he has 'absolute right to declare a national emergency' in Fox News interview

President Donald Trump told Fox News on Thursday that he has "the absolute right to declare a national emergency" if he can't reach an agreement with congressional Democrats to provide funding for his promised wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
"The law is very clear. I mean, we have the absolute right to declare a national emergency," Trump told Sean Hannity in an exclusive interview. "This is a national emergency, if you look what's happening."
LINDSEY GRAHAM: IT'S TIME FOR TRUMP 'TO USE EMERGENCY POWERS TO FUND' BORDER WALL
Trump did not lay out a specific timetable for when he might take such a step, saying: "I think we're going to see what happens over the next few days." However, he appeared to hold out hope for making a deal to secure wall funding and fully reopen the government.
"We should be able to make a deal with Congress," the president said. "If you look, Democrats, in Congress, especially the new ones coming in, are starting to say, ‘Wait a minute, we can’t win this battle with Trump, because of the fact that it’s just common sense. How can we say that a wall doesn’t work?’"

The president spoke to Fox News on the banks of the Rio Grande, where he traveled to argue his claim that a barrier would deter drug and human trafficking into the United States.
"Death is pouring through," Trump said. "We have crime and death and it's not just at the border. They get through the border and they go and filter into the country and you have MS-13 gangs in places like Los Angeles and you have gangs all over Long Island, which we're knocking the hell out of. There should be no reason for us to have to do this. They shouldn't be allowed in and if we had the barrier, they wouldn't be allowed in."
The president said a wall would be "virtually a hundred percent effective and [House Speaker] Nancy [Pelosi] and [Senate Democratic Leader] Chuck [Schumer] know that, but it's politics. It's about the 2020 campaign, it's about running for president. That's what they're doing. They're already doing it. It's a shame. They've got to put the country first."
Democrats repeatedly have refused to approve any legislation to fund the wall. The standoff led to the partial government shutdown, which is set to his the three-week mark Friday.
"Everyone wants us to win this battle," Trump said. "It's common sense ... Look, we’re not going anywhere. We’re not changing our mind because there’s nothing to change your mind about. The wall works [and] if we don't have a steel or concrete barrier, we're all wasting a lot of time."