Democrats may use government shutdown to get concessions from Trump - Senator
US President Donald Trump (photo: Getty Images)
Democratic Senator Cory Booker has not ruled out the possibility that Democrats will use a government shutdown or a default on the national debt against Donald Trump's actions. This, in turn, will be a lever to obtain concessions from the Republicans and the President of the United States, CNN reports.
"Let me just put it pointedly – the strategy is to do whatever we can to stop Donald Trump from hurting Americans, from making us less safe, less secure, and from raising our costs. We will look at every single tool in our toolbox, as we’ve done this last week, to make sure that we stop him from hurting people," Booker said.
Earlier, he said that while Democrats "are not looking to shut down the government," they want to "stand up against the kinds of things that Donald Trump is doing that are hurting Americans," claiming that the country is "in a crisis right now."
The Democratic senator also spoke out against Trump's strengthening of diversity, equality, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.
"This is stunning to me, especially because they’re, they’re really charging this word DEI as if it’s something that undermines the ability for the government to hire the best people. It’s actually the opposite of that. When we’re trying to hire the best of the best, having a more inclusive search to go to HBCUs or Hispanic-serving institutions, to find as big of an applicant pool as possible. To me, these are kind of things that help us to hire the best of the best," he explained.
Booker added that what Trump is doing is consistently lying to people under the guise of some "noble ideal."
At the end of January, the US Presidential Administration instructed the heads of federal agencies to start laying off employees of the offices of diversity, equality, inclusion, and accessibility. The reason was that Donald Trump's team considered these programs to be discriminatory.
