CNN Pulls Receipts of Trump on Tape Blaming ‘The President’ if There’s a Government Shutdown
CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins pulled some video receipts on Wednesday of then-future President Donald Trump repeatedly arguing that “the president” should bear the blame if there’s a government shutdown.
Amid a government shutdown that began this week, Trump and the Republicans have tried to place blame for the standoff on Democrats with the claim — ruled false by numerous fact-checkers — that the party is holding out in order to “give all these illegal aliens free health care.”
Democrats have blamed Trump because he and his party control the White House and both chambers of Congress.
On Wednesday night’s edition of CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins, Collins reminded GOP analyst Scott Jennings and Democratic analyst Karen Finney of the numerous times Trump has previously agreed that presidents shoulder the blame if there’s a shutdown:
COLLINS: Scott, one thing that people have been reminding me of today is what President Trump himself used to say before he was president, about what happens when there is a government shutdown.
Listen to him in his own words.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I hear the Democrats are going to be blamed and the Republicans are going to be blamed. I actually think the president would be blamed. If there is a shutdown, and it’s not going to be a horrible shutdown because, as you know, things will sort of keep rolling–
MEREDITH VIEIRA, AMERICAN BROADCASTER: Well, it was a partial shutdown. Right.
TRUMP: But if there is a shutdown, I think it would be a tremendously negative mark on the President of the United States. He’s the one that has to get people together.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Who’s going to bear the brunt of the responsibility if indeed there is a — is shutdown of our government?
TRUMP: Well, if you say who gets fired, it always has to be the top. I mean, problems start from the top, and they have to get solved from the top. And the president’s the leader, and he’s got to get everybody in a room, and he’s got to lead.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
Watch above via CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins.
