Twenty-six days into the shutdown, US Sen. Chris Murphy argued on CNN's "State of the Union" Sunday that President Donald Trump "is refusing to negotiate... because he likes the fact that the government is closed, because he thinks he can exercise king-like powers, he can open up the parts of the government that he wants, he can pay the employees who are loyal to him."
The second-longest government shutdown in US history began early this month because congressional Republicans want to maintain their funding plans, while Democrats want to help the millions of Americans facing healthcare coverage losses and surging insurance premiums by reversing the GOP's recent Medicaid cuts and extending Affordable Care Act subsidies.
"Let's be clear. We're shut down right now because Republicans are refusing to even talk to Democrats about a bipartisan budget bill," Murphy (D-Conn.) told CNN's Jake Tapper. "Yes, we have priorities, just like they do. One of our priorities is pretty simple, making sure that premiums don't go up by 75% on 22 million families this fall."
"Now, the reality is, if they sat down to try to negotiate, we could probably come up with something pretty quickly," the senator suggested, pointing to Trump's $20-40 billion bailout for Argentina. "That's enough money to relieve a lot of pressure of these premium increases. So, we could get this deal done in a day if the president was in DC, rather than being overseas. We could open up the government on Tuesday or Wednesday, and there wouldn't be any crisis in the food stamp program."
"I just don't want to live in a world in which Donald Trump and a handful of billionaires decide which part of government works and which don't."
Trump arrived in Malaysia on Sunday and is set to spend the week traveling in Asia. His administration refuses to use a contingency fund to deliver food stamps—officially called Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits—during the shutdown, imperiling relief for about 42 million low-income people and drawing intense criticism from Democrats in Congress.
Federal workers, contractors, and service members are also at risk of not being able to buy groceries due to missed paychecks. However, one of the president's rich friends—billionaire banking heir and railroad magnate Timothy Mellon, according to the New York Times—donated $130 million toward paying more than 1.3 million troops, which potentially violates federal law.
Asked about the donation, Murphy accused Trump of wanting to behave like a king, adding: "This is a leader who is trying to transition our government from a democracy to something much closer to a totalitarian state. And so this is part of what happens in totalitarian states: The leader, the regime only, decides what things get funded and what don't, often in coordination with their oligarch friends."
"So, I just don't want to live in a world in which Donald Trump and a handful of billionaires decide which part of government works and which don't, which is why I would rather have him at the negotiating table tomorrow, so that we can reopen the government and it can be a democratically elected Congress that decides what things get funded, not a handful of superrich dudes," said the senator, who spoke at the second "No Kings" protest in the nation's capital earlier this month.
Trump has used the shutdown to try to advance his purge of the federal workforce. He's also continued his escalating push for regime change in Venezuela, blowing up boats he claims are running drugs and on Friday deploying an aircraft carrier—all without approval from Congress, which has the sole power to declare war, according to the US Constitution. Murphy has previously condemned the boat bombings as "another sign of Trump's growing lawlessness."
The president has also continued pushing his sweeping tariffs, which Murphy has called "a political weapon designed to collapse our democracy." Just days before the US Supreme Court is set to hear arguments on the legality of the administration's global trade policy, Trump on Saturday announced a new 10% tariff on goods from Canada—which will raise prices for American consumers—in response to the Ontario government's advertisement featuring former President Ronald Reagan's critique of import taxes.
Asked about the announcement, Murphy told Tapper: "I think it's just further confirmation that these tariffs have nothing to do with us. Prices are going up on everything in this country. Manufacturing jobs are leaving... These tariffs really are just a political tool that the president uses to help himself, sometimes to enrich himself."
Murphy also connected the tariffs to the Trump administration's broader crackdown on dissent, from recent his designation of antifa as a domestic terrorist organization and a related National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 targeting a wide range of critics, to the US Department of Justice prosecuting the president's political enemies and Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chair Brendan Carr temporarily forcing late-night host Jimmy Kimmel off the air.
"Whether he likes it or not, even the government of Canada or the government of Ontario has the right to criticize him," Murphy said, "but he's now going to use the tariffs to try to punish people overseas from speaking out against him, just like he's using the Department of Justice or the FCC to try to punish and control people who are speaking out against him here in America."
"So these tariffs aren't about rebuilding our economy," he added. "They aren't about helping regular consumers. They're just about giving Trump additional power to try to benefit himself politically and financially."
