President Donald Trump said Monday that he will address the nation at 9 p.m. ET Tuesday to discuss the standoff over his proposed border wall that has shut down large chunks of the federal government.
The White House also announced Monday that Trump will visit the U.S.-Mexico border later this week.
Trump will make the visit Thursday to "meet with those on the frontlines of the national security and humanitarian crisis" at the southern border, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a tweet.
Sanders tweet
Shortly after Sanders' tweet, Trump announced via Twitter that "I will Address the Nation on the Humanitarian and National Security crisis on our Southern Border. Tuesday night at 9:00 P.M. Eastern."
Multiple broadcasts networks were reportedly tapped by the White House to air Trump's address, though it was unclear which, if any, had agreed to host that speech.
Trump's visit to the southern border is scheduled to land on the 20th day of the partial shutdown of nine federal departments. While only about a quarter of the government has been shuttered as a result of the impasse over a spending deal, the shutdown has already become the third-longest on record.
Sanders' announcement came a day before Congress was set to return to session.
Trump has demanded that any deal to fully fund the government include more than $5 billion for a wall — a request Democratic leaders are refusing to grant. The amount of money requested would cover only about 234 miles of the nearly 2,000-mile-long, according to a letter sent to Capitol Hill by the Office of Management and Budget on Sunday.
The president has argued that a wall offers the most secure possible form of border security. "You wouldn't even have a country" without a wall, Trump said in March during a tour of border wall prototypes in San Diego.
But some Democrats have called the wall an expensive and ineffective "vanity project" for the president. And despite frequent negotiation sessions that have included Vice President Mike Pence, Trump's senior advisor Jared Kushner and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, little progress appears to have been made.
from Top News & Analysis https://cnb.cx/2Fd8obP
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