President Trump: Let them eat wall
It’s estimated that the cost of the federal government shutdown had exceeded the $5.7 billion President Trump requested to pay for his border wall.
Things have got out of hand.
Trump and his administration’s apologists have shown that they have no idea what it’s like to be without the means to make ends meet.
Let me put it another way.
There were more than 800,000 Americans who were without paychecks to buy food, pay their utility bills, and pay their mortgage payments or rent – because Donald Trump wants to build a wall.
For Trump’s henchmen and women, that’s OK.
“This is so much bigger than any one person,” said Lara Trump, the president’s daughter-in-law. (She’s married to Trump’s son Eric)
She should have stopped there.
She didn’t.
“It is a little bit of pain, but it’s going to be for the future of our country…” she added.
People are still facing evictions don’t think that’s, “A little bit of pain.”
People who were forced to choose between buying food, and paying for critical medical care, weren’t dealing with a “little bit of pain.”
Lara Trump should have visited some of the food banks that spring up around the country, and she would have seen firsthand what desperation looks like.
Trump claims that “many of the people that we’re talking about (furloughed workers) agree with what we’re doing.”
It’s quite clear he hadn’t talked to many of those people.
And besides, in early January, he somehow claimed that “most of the workers not getting paid are Democrats.”
If, as he boasted, many of the workers agree with him, chances are, most of them aren’t Democrats.
Long gone are the days when Bill Clinton would say things like, “I feel your pain.”
We now have a president who wrongly believes that out of work federal workers feel HIS pain.
Yet, the winner of the most hard-hearted Trump administration official is Wilbur Ross.
He’s Trump’s Secretary of Commerce.
Mr. Ross is a billionaire, who apparently has never lived paycheck-to-paycheck.
Nor, perhaps, has he ever met anybody in that situation.
He was asked about the federal workers who are forced to go to homeless shelters to get food.
“There’s no real reason why they can’t get a loan,” Ross replied.
He continued by saying that federal credit unions and banks have federally guaranteed loans.
Ross has not only not lived paycheck-to-paycheck, but he’s probably never tried to get a loan without having a job.
But for Ross, Trump’s daughter-in-law and Trump, unable to live hand-to-mouth, is just a temporary speed bump on the way to financial security.
To be fair, there is one Trump administration official who was willing to take a realistic look at things were shaping up.
Kevin Hassett, the White House economic adviser said had the government shutdown continued, it could have lead to there being zero first-quarter economic growth.
That, I might add, is no real consolation for mothers trying to feed their children.
Or, entire families facing evictions.
It’s just a hit on Trump’s claim that the United States of America is flying head-first into Shangri-La.
Trump does have other serious problems.
His biggest is his current nemesis, Rep. Nancy Pelosi.
Since she’s returned as Speaker of the House, Pelosi has proven she’s more than capable enough to give Mr. Trump nightmares – even daymares if there is such a thing.
First, she alerted the president that the annual State of the Union address would be problematic if the government would still be shutdown tomorrow.
Trump responded by saying he’d find a venue other than the chamber of the U.S. House to deliver the speech.
Pelosi held firm.
Trump backed down.
He’s now planning on doing something else tomorrow night.
Maybe he’ll just go bowling, instead.
Or, perhaps, he can talk to some of the federal workers who will still have to visit food banks until their paychecks start rolling again, and realize they made poor pawns in his worthless crusade to build a border wall.
Edward A. Owens is a multi-Emmy Award winner, former reporter, and anchor for Entertainment Tonight and 20-year TV news veteran. E-mail him at freedoms@bellatlantic.net.