AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite
House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of California, and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York speak to reporters about the Congressional Budget Office projection that 14 million people would lose health coverage under the House Republican bill dismantling former President Barack Obama's health care law, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Monday, March, 13, 2017.
- Democratic leadership is tweeting through the government shutdown - and placing the blame squarely on the president.
- "It's Christmas Eve and President Trump is plunging the country into chaos," House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a joint statement Monday.
Democratic leadership is tweeting through the government shutdown - and placing the blame squarely on the president.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer released a statement on Monday slamming President Donald Trump for allowing the government to shut down over the holidays. The shutdown resulted in the closing of nine federal agencies, leaving hundreds of thousands of federal government employees without pay.
"It's Christmas Eve and President Trump is plunging the country into chaos," Pelosi and Schumer said in a joint statement. "The stock market is tanking and the president is waging a personal war on the Federal Reserve - after he just fired the Secretary of Defense."
This came as the Dow had its worst day of Christmas Eve trading ever - and its worst December since the Great Depression.
Pelosi and Schumer also said they've gotten mixed messages from the White House on what Trump would agree to in a deal with Democrats to re-open the government. They argued that as long as Trump aligns himself with right-wing media and the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus - which pushed him to reject a stop-gap funding bill - he won't reach an agreement with Democrats.
"Different people from the same White House are saying different things about what @realDonaldTrump would accept or not accept to end his #TrumpShutdown, making it impossible to know where they stand at any given moment," they wrote. ".@realDonaldTrump wanted the #TrumpShutdown, but he seems not to know how to get himself out of it."
This came after Trump spent days tweeting his demands for billions of dollars in funding for a wall on the US-Mexico border and blaming the shutdown on Democrats even after he said he would be "proud" to close the government over border security.
"I am all alone (poor me) in the White House waiting for the Democrats to come back and make a deal on desperately needed Border Security," he wrote on Christmas Eve. "At some point the Democrats not wanting to make a deal will cost our Country more money than the Border Wall we are all talking about. Crazy!"