Rick Santorum Questions Why Democrats Won’t Spend Money on Wall: They Never ‘Want to Control Spending’

During a CNN segment on President Donald Trump’s decision to shutdown the government over a lack of border wall funding, Republican Senator Rick Santorum attempted to own liberals using their own logic, arguing that “Democrats are always asking for money for everything,” so they should want to spend on the wall.

“It’s a little counter-intuitive that Democrats are opposing more money. I mean, I don’t know, I can’t remember the last time we had a budget battle where the Democrats fought and said, no, we want to control spending. The Democrats are always asking for money for everything,” Santorum said after CNN’s John Avlon asked what he’d tell Trump if he were advising him. “So the president doesn’t seem to be concerned about that, which is sort of counter to the, again, the traditional Republican ideas.”

Of course, the wall debate has little to do with Obama-era, partisan bickering over government spending, and is instead mostly over the symbol the wall has become for Trump and those who oppose him. For example, in one statement against the wall, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) condemned it as “immoral.”

“Democrats will stand fast against the immoral, ineffective border wall and the rest of Republicans’ unacceptable poison pill riders,” the lawmaker stated.

Later in the CNN hit, Santorum predicted the two parties in Washington will do what they’ve “always done” during gridlock: “Buy each other off, and see what their priorities are.”

He went on to explain why Trump had to double-down on the wall funding, even though he is at a disadvantage due to an incoming Democratic controlled House:

“Well, he put himself in a position where he can’t back down and he has to come home with something to improve our security at the southern border and part of that has to be some sort of physical barrier. And the president has legitimately campaigned for this, and talked about as president, and look, if I — one of the things the president has not been very good at is discipline, and this is an opportunity to sort of try out the 2020 campaign and see whether you can actually focus and — he says he is going down to the wall, going down to the border in January, good idea. I would do a series of events leading up to that and continue to talk about the problems at the border and what it means to ordinary Americans.”

Watch above, via CNN.

[image via screengrab]

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