BILLINGS – Senator Jon Tester spoke on Face the Nation Sunday morning, to discuss the ongoing government shutdown and the ramifications of the political deadlock between a divided Congress and the White House.
Tester said that President Trump had not been consistent in his funding requests for the border wall–allegedly increasing his original $1.6 billion request, to $5 billion.
“What did happen this last year is the president asked for one point six billion dollars in his budget proposal for this next year,” said Tester. “The Appropriations Committee, which Senator Shelby chairs and Senator Leahy is a ranking member of agreed to that in a bipartisan way. Senator Shelby voted for it. Senator McConnell voted for it. The president moved the goalposts and said, no, now I want five billion.”
Tester also addressed the ‘trade war’ with China and how he says it continues to hurt American farmers because the narrow margins in production agriculture can be easily affected when the country sees a loss in exports.
Reporting by Zoe Zandora for MTN News
