Dem Rep. Bustos on Border Wall: ‘Nothing More Than a Symbol’ — ‘We Might Have to Give or Take a Little Bit’

In a Friday appearance on CNN’s “New Day,” Rep. Cheri Bustos (D-IL) weighed in on the continued partial government shutdown over border security funding.

Bustos said Trump’s proposed wall “is nothing more than a symbol” and admitted both sides need to have some “give or take” in negotiations.

[T]he wall that President Trump has talked about now for many years because this was a defining theme when he was a candidate, it is nothing more than a symbol if you look at it from this perspective,” Bustos said. “If we have a partial wall, if we have fencing, if we have technology used to keep our border safe, all of that is fine, but it has become the symbol that the president is not having any give or take when it comes to this $5 billion. What we passed out of the House yesterday on our first day of session, were two mechanisms to open up the government again. Most of it to fund the government through September, another portion where we give the president another month … yet we had only a handful of Republicans support that, and the Senate won’t even take it up.”

She elaborated, “I believe that when we are looking at many issues, whether it pertains to rebuilding our country and passing what I hope will end up being a trillion-dollar infrastructure package, to rebuild our roads and bridges and waterways or lowering the cost of health care including the exorbitant prices of prescription drugs. Whatever it is, what I’m saying is we could have a starting point where we go in and say this is ideally what we would like to see happen. But in the end, we might have to give or take a little bit. It’s just the way the world works.”

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