Donald Trump Once Said Government Shutdowns Are the Result of Incompetent Presidents
A government shutdown is officially upon us, and while Republicans and Democrats are busy exchanging aisle-crossing death stares as they negotiate the budget, the American public has been graced with a five-year-old, gloriously ironic Fox News clip of now-president Donald J. Trump offering sage advice on how a president should act when faced with looming federal paralysis.
TRUMP in 2013: "They talk about the government shutdown, they're going to be talking about the president of the United States — who was the president at that time? ... I really think the pressure is on the president." pic.twitter.com/dVur51wwpR
— JM Rieger (@RiegerReport) January 19, 2018
While appearing on Fox's On The Record in October 2013, the Apprentice host crowed his thoughts to anchor Greta Van Susteren on how to bypass a government freeze—condemning then-president Barack Obama for his inability to do so and reminding the country that the art of the deal when it comes to shutdowns on Capital Hill is simply that "you have to be a leader."
"You have to get everybody in a room. The president has to lead," Trump told former Fox News Host Greta Van Susteren during the on-air interview. "You have to be nice and be angry and be wild and conjole and do all sorts of things, but you have to get a deal. And, unfortunately, [Obama] has never been a dealmaker. That wasn't his expertise before he went into politics and it's obviously not his expertise now."
Right.
As a reminder: The catalyst behind the current standstill in Washington stems from an inability of both sides of the aisle to agree on pending budget plans, and Trump's inability to, well, "conjole," as they say.
Democrats will pass the proposed budget plan only if it includes funding for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients (the federal program allowing immigrants who've come to the U.S. illegally as children to remain, study and work without fear of deportation). But Trump's not having it; so herein lies the rub.
Naturally, the recirculation of this Fox News clip has given rise to burns like this:
On Twitter, the shutdown in Washington has been informally renamed as "Trump's Shutdown," with the hashtag "#TrumpShutdown" becoming the top-trending hashtag worldwide. Take a look:
During the conclusion of his Fox News interview, Trump says, regarding Obama's alleged presidential incompetence at the time: "Unfortunately, this country is not moving in the right direction. It all starts with competence. You need great competence."
Words to live by!
Watch the entire clip, below:
