NJ elected officials slam Trump speech on shutdown, border wall
NorthJersey.com
January 8, 2019
President Donald Trump stressed the importance of border security for the United States during a speech Tuesday and said the government remains shut down because Democrats won’t fund it.
New Jersey’s elected Democrats, though, rejected Trump’s notion that a wall is about safety for Americans.
Gov. Phil Murphy said Trump “continues to mislead to justify his damaging shutdown.”
“There’s a smarter way for us to invest $5 billion than an impractical wall,” Murphy tweeted. “The Gateway Project will create jobs, promote economic and national security, and build critically needed infrastructure.”
Sen. Bob Menendez was also critical.
“This is straight out of Trump’s racist, xenophobic playbook — inciting fear about immigrants when we’re really talking about the women and children fleeing violence in Central America and searching for safety in the U.S.” Menendez tweeted.
Trump said the southern border of the United States is a pipeline for illegal drugs and weapons and that thousands of Americans over the years have been killed by people who enter the country illegally.
Sen. Cory Booker said Trump painted a “false picture” of a border crisis and that border apprehensions are “near historic lows.”
Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman also refuted the truth of the president’s arguments.
“There is no world in which a trade agreement pays for a wall, just like there’s no world in which ‘border security’ means a wall, whether its steel, brick or made of the lies Trump has told tonight,” Coleman tweeted.
Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr. asked why the border wasn’t a crisis when Republicans controlled every branch of government.
“It’s a manufactured emergency concocted by a desperate man. End this #TrumpShutdown now,” Pascrell tweeted.
Rep. Donald Norcross said it was more of the same from Trump.
“As expected, the same rhetoric while holding federal workers and our economy hostage,” Norcross tweeted.