On the eve of a holiday commemorating the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Vice President Pence seemed to liken President Trump’s push for a border wall to the civil rights leader’s legacy.
Speaking Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” the vice president quoted from King’s “I Have a Dream” speech as he defended Trump’s latest pitch to secure funding for a barrier along the United States’ southern border. The budget impasse over the wall has resulted in the longest government shutdown in history, one that has left thousands of federal workers without pay.
“One of my favorite quotes from Dr. King was, ‘Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy,’ ” Pence said. “You think of how he changed America. He inspired us to change through the legislative process, to become a more perfect union.
“That’s exactly what President Trump is calling on Congress to do,” Pence continued. “Come to the table in the spirit of good faith. We’ll secure our border. We’ll reopen the government and we’ll move our nation forward as the president said yesterday to even a broader discussion about immigration reform in the months ahead.”
Pence was referring to the president’s latest proposal to end the partial government shutdown. On Saturday, Trump offered Democrats three years of deportation protections for some immigrants, including many who were brought to the country illegally as children, in exchange for $5.7 billion in wall funding.
Democrats, who have long sought protections for beneficiaries of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, who are known as “dreamers,” immediately rejected the proposal, arguing that the president should reopen the government before any talks on border security begin. Conservatives saw the president’s proposal as amnesty.
On Sunday, Pence appeared on multiple shows and defended Trump’s proposal, which he said “provides a framework” for ending the shutdown.
“What the president presented yesterday really is an effort to bring together ideas from both political parties,” Pence said on CBS. “I think it is an act of statesmanship on the president’s part to say, ‘Here is what I’m for. It includes my priorities, it includes priorities that Democrats have advanced for some period of time.’”
Pence’s comments about King drew immediate pushback from Democrats, including Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.), who said Trump “is no MLK.”
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