Trump say ' Can't tell you when government will reopen '

About 25 per cent of the government is shut down for the fourth straight day.

President Donald Trump aforementioned Tuesday that he intends to stay the centralized closed till he secures the specified funding from Congress for his secure border wall, and he solid doubt regarding the performance of Fed Chairman Doctor H. Powell when a pointy downswing in U.S. stock markets.

In Associate in Nursing Oval Office look on Christmas morning, Trump praised Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin despite the stock markets suffering their steepest Christmas Eve decline in decades however was additional prudent regarding his handpicked Fed chair.

"Well, we'll see," Trump aforementioned once a journalist asked whether or not he had confidence in Powell. "They're raising interest rates too quick, that is my opinion. however I actually think about. however i believe it's going to straighten. they are raising interest rates too quick as a result of they suppose the economy is therefore sensible. however i believe that they'll dig pretty before long, i actually do."

As for whether or not he has confidence in Mnuchin, whose Sunday calls to reassure major bank executives perturbed investors and should have exacerbated Monday's sell-off, Trump told reporters, "Yes, I do. terribly gifted guy, terribly sensible person."

Trump created his comments throughout a Christmas social occasion within the Oval Office, wherever he spoke by video group discussion with service members from all 5 branches of the soldiers WHO are stationed in Alaska, Bahrain, Guam and Qatar.

About twenty five % of the govt. is stop working for the fourth straight day with Congress at a stalemate over Trump's demand for $5 billion in wall construction cash.

"I cannot tell you once the govt. goes to open up," he said. "I will tell you it is not visiting be open till we've got a wall, a fence, no matter they'd prefer to decision it. i will decision it no matter they require. however it's all the identical issue. it is a barrier from folks gushing into our country."

The president defended his attempt to construct a wall on the border with North American nation that he insisted solely Associate in Nursing Olympic contestant would be ready to scale. "If you do not have that, then we're simply not gap," Trump aforementioned.

All told, about 800,000 of 2.1 million federal staff nationwide - or over a 3rd - are calculable to be affected in a way by the closure. Trump claimed that several of them support the closure.

"Many of these staff have aforementioned to ME, communicated - keep out till you get the funding for the wall," Trump aforementioned. "These federal staff need the wall."

But his claim conflicts with the accounts of federal workers' union leaders.

"Federal workers shouldn't need to pay the private value for all of this disfunction," aforementioned Tony Reardon, president of the National Treasury workers Union, that represents one hundred fifty,000 members at thirty three federal agencies and departments. "This closure may be a travesty. Congress and also the White House haven't done their basic jobs of keeping the govt. open."

In a survey of one,500 union members, regarding eighty five % aforementioned they need restricted season outlay or are about to do therefore due to uncertainty regarding financial gain, Reardon aforementioned on Christmas Eve. He aforementioned they embody one WHO aforementioned "I have recently lost my better half and currently . . .. i've got to place off shopping for her headstone. Breaks my heart."

Another responded, "I can't buy any Christmas presents and am considering returning those I already have. Mortgage companies and utility companies won't wait to get paid," according to Reardon.

The government shutdown comes near the end of what will probably be the worst year for the U.S. stock market since the financial crisis a decade ago. Many sectors are now technically in a "bear market," down more than 20 percent.

Before the recent reversal in the stock market, which began during the fall, Trump had frequently boasted that stocks were soaring during his tenure, claiming credit for the upswing.

The downturn has caused great uncertainty in the White House as Trump has sought someone to blame, and he has lashed out publicly at Powell. On Saturday, several news outlets reported that Trump was looking for ways to potentially fire Powell. That spurred Mnuchin to release a statement on Trump's behalf that the president did not believe he had the "right" to fire Powell.

Many economists and analysts on Wall Street say that an attempt to fire the Fed chief would send markets in a tailspin amid uncertainty over the stability of the U.S. central bank, the most important institution in shaping U.S. and global markets.

Trump is angry that Powell is continuing the Fed's long-telegraphed plan to raise its benchmark interest rate and scale back other extraordinary measures intended to support the economy. The Fed's benchmark rate is now 2.25 to 2.5 percent, higher than the near-zero interest rate the Fed had pursued for years but still historically low.

Trump complains that his predecessor Barack Obama benefited from lower interest rates, spurring economic growth. Others point out that the Fed, which operates independently of the White House, had pursued a low-interest-rate policy because the economy was much weaker than it is today.

"They are raising interest rates too fast, that's my opinion," Trump said Tuesday. "President Obama didn't do much of that . . . He had a very low interest rate."

Powell was Mnuchin's recommendation when Trump was seeking a new Fed chair a year ago, and some close to Trump have questioned whether the president will begin to blame the treasury secretary, too, for the sell-off. But on Tuesday he praised Mnuchin, a longtime friend and finance chairman of his 2016 campaign.

Again on Tuesday, Trump tried to place blame for Washington's budget stalemate solely on Democrats, portraying their leaders as disingenuous and claiming that they support the notion of a physical barrier along the border and object to building the wall only because it is Trump's idea.

Trump likened the situation to his May 2017 firing of James Comey as FBI director, saying "Democrats hated him" until he was fired and then Comey was treated as a hero.

Even as he vowed to keep the government closed to secure wall funding, Trump claimed that much of his envisioned wall was already being built. He said he had awarded a contract "at a great price" for a 115-mile section of wall in Texas and plans to visit the site in January for "a ground-breaking" ceremony.

Administration officials have provided no details about this construction project or the terms of the contract.

Trump said he hopes to have all portions of the wall completed - either old fencing renovated or new construction - by Election Day 2020, an indication that he sees building the wall chiefly as a political issue tied to his reelection chances.

Trump said Tuesday that the wall as he envisions it would be a fortress that no normal human could breach.

"Now there may be the case of an Olympic champion who can get over the wall, but for the most part you are not able to do it," he said. "Very high. It's gonna be 30 feet. Much of it is 30 feet high. Some if it's low. But in some areas we have it as high as 30 feet. That's like a three-story building."