Texas Sen. Ted Cruz believes Senate Democrats want a partial government shutdown in order to appease their base, which is demanding resistance to President Trump at every turn.
Cruz said on Fox News on Wednesday that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is going to bend to the loud voices in his party calling for resistance to Trump’s agenda. He said Schumer himself might not care about Trump’s plan to build a wall along the southern border with Mexico, but he’s willing to partially shut down the government over it.
“Chuck Schumer’s left wing, radical base is demanding that they oppose everything so I think Chuck Schumer and the Democrats want a shutdown,” Cruz said. “I think they’re trying to provoke a fight and Schumer’s just trying to put in more and more unreasonable demands to try and appease those who want total resistance, total opposition, who don’t want the Trump administration to succeed.”
.@tedcruz: Schumer doesn’t care about the border wall. It’s his radical left base that has him terrified if he doesn’t oppose everything. pic.twitter.com/E9wWJtTmib
— FOX & friends (@foxandfriends) April 26, 2017
Cruz, who once championed a partial government shutdown in 2013 in order to try to force President Obama to repeal his healthcare reform law, said Senate Democrats are terrified of their base moving against them in the 2018 mid-term elections.
Negotiations are underway to keep the government fully operational past Friday. If a spending bill is not passed and signed by midnight, the government will go into a partial shutdown.
One of the major sticking points is funding for Trump’s wall on the Mexican border. Trump has requested $1.4 billion for the project but Democrats are united in opposition to the idea. While the wall is important to Trump and his base, congressional Republicans are lukewarm on the idea.
The latest deal released Tuesday didn’t include funding for the wall but did increase funding for border security. The White House has made it clear it wants funding for the wall in the spending deal, but won’t commit to shutting down the government if a deal is made that doesn’t include the $1.4 billion Trump requested.
