Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said that President Trump doesn’t need to create an “artificial” crisis at the southern border because the U.S. has enough “real crises.”
“Mr. President, we don’t need to create artificial crises. We have enough real crises,” the former Democratic presidential hopeful said in a live response video to Trump’s address Tuesday night. “Let us end this shutdown and bring the American people together around an agenda that will improve life for all of our people.”
[WATCH: Trump holds prime-time address over shutdown, border]
The independent senator listed a slew of other issues he believes are real crises Americans are facing, including income inequality, inadequate health insurance, high college tuition rates, and climate change.
“President Trump lies all of the time,” Sanders continued during his response. “And in his remarks tonight and in recent weeks regarding immigration and the wall, he continues to lie.”
There’s no crisis at the border. President Trump, you want to talk about crises?
-30 million Americans have no health insurance
-Climate change threatens our planet
-Half of older Americans have no retirement savings
-40 million are dealing with outrageous student debt— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) January 9, 2019
Trump addressed the nation in a prime-time speech where he made the case for a crisis occurring at the southern border.
Although reports emerged that said the president could possibly declare a national emergency, he instead took the 9 p.m. address to talk about the problems the U.S. is facing that could be solved with the wall.
The government went into a partial shutdown days before Christmas when congressional Democrats and Trump could not agree on a spending bill that included wall funding. The partial government shutdown is in its third week with no clear end in sight.
