Trump threatens to ‘close down the country’ over funding for border wall

President Trump threatened on Saturday to “close down the country” — an apparent reference to a government shutdown — unless Congress approves funding for his long-promised wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. 

In a fiery campaign-style speech, Trump lashed out at Democratic lawmakers for opposing his pledge to build the border wall, and said that once government funding runs out at the end of September he would call for a so-called shutdown.

“We have to have borders and we have to have them fast and we need security, we need the wall,” Trump said at the rally in Washington, Mich.

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“That wall has started. We got $1.6 billion. We come up again on Sept. 28 and if we don’t get border security, we’ll have no choice. We’ll close down the country. Because we need border security.”

Trump has long called for the construction of a massive wall along the U.S. southern border, arguing that such a project is necessary to curb illegal border crossings.