Now, 2,200 miles from Washington, D.C., representatives like me are held accountable by these families and these victims each and every day, while a standoff continues here. And so I challenge our congressional members to meet with these families, to meet with these victims, to look them in the eye, and tell them that this is not a crisis.
Thank you for the opportunity to be here.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Thank you very much. And this is where I ask the Democrats to come back to Washington, and to vote for money for the wall, the barrier - whatever you want to call it is okay with me. They can name it whatever. They can name it "Peaches." I don't care what they name it. But we need money for that barrier.
I will say this: The Republicans have been rock solid. They want this to happen. They've wanted it to happen a long time ago, and, frankly, for many years. I'm not just talking about now. I'm talking about for years.
I gave, yesterday, an example. With Israel, for many years, everybody campaigning for President said they were going to move the embassy to Jerusalem - the American embassy to Jerusalem. This went on, Pastor, as you know, for many, many years. Many, many Presidents, dating back all the way to - who was the first? And they never did it.
And I said the same thing - same words, same campaign. But I did it and got it done, and people are very happy. Jewish population and evangelicals - unbelievably happy. I did it. I understand why they didn't do it because it was very tough to do. It met with a lot of nasty talk before I did it. And then I did it. And it was done.
And now we've just opened up the embassy, as you know, long ahead of budget and schedule, and way under budget. Like, how about a billion dollars under budget? Opened it up for almost nothing - an existing building that we renovated.
But the fact is: For years and years, I heard about the embassy going to Jerusalem and the - people would campaign. They were in for four years. They were in for eight years. They'd never get it done. I got it done.
This is a very similar thing. I've been hearing about putting a really good wall - and, in my case, I like to say a "beautiful" wall because I think it makes a difference. I've seen some of the wall they put up; it's so unattractive that I understand why other people don't want it. But this is a great-looking - this is a great-looking structure. I mean, it's - it's going to look great.
It's going to do the trick beyond belief. It's far better than anybody had projected. We have it at a much lower cost. And it's better. It's stronger. It's better. And you have the vision through. You have - you're able to see through. But we're going to get it done.
And I compare that to the embassy because they talked about it for 45, 50 years - longer. And we got it done. We're going to get this done, too.
Now, Republicans are rock solid. I have to hand it to him - Mitch McConnell. Every one of them - Kevin - they have been so strong on this. I'm very impressed.
The Democrats are just following politics. And I'm not saying that for any reason other - I guess they're looking at 2020. They think, "Gee, if we can hurt Trump, we'll have a better chance of winning an election."
This isn't about winning an election. This is very simply - very, very simply about doing what's right for the country. And we have to do what's right for the country. This is common sense. This is not sending rockets to the moon. This is common sense. We have to have this. This country has to have it.
They've been talking about it for 35 years. And they do little pieces - a little piece here, a little piece there. Put a piece where we need it. The people just go around it. We have to have it. It's got to get done. It's got to get done now.
Congress has to do its duty and the Democrats have to help us. They have to come back to Washington, and they have to vote for border security. They have to vote for safety. It's national security, too. They have to come back and they have to vote. It'll take us 15 minutes, and then we're going to get on to much bigger immigration reform because we should do that. We should do that.
I want to thank everybody for being here. We're going to have, now, the rest of the meeting. Media, thank you very much. I appreciate it.
Q Mr. President, when will you sign the back pay bill?
Q Mr. President, any message to the federal employees? Any message to the federal employees who are not getting paid today? Any message?
THE PRESIDENT: The message is that I appreciate their service to the country. They are incredible people - the federal employees that we're talking about. But many of them agree with what I'm saying and with what the people in this room, who are experts, are saying. They don't want to see people killed because we can't do a simple border structure. And I appreciate their incredible support.
We have, yesterday - it was - I was watching this morning and reading this morning that so many people are saying the President is doing what's right, and even though it's affecting us short-term, temporarily - as you know, a bill was just passed, which I will sign, in Congress, making sure that everybody is going to be paid immediately upon - when this is over.
But I just really appreciate the fact that they have handled it so incredibly well. And many of them agree with what we're doing. We have no choice.
Steve, go ahead.
Q Twenty-four hours ago, you were saying that you were probably going to declare a national emergency. What -
THE PRESIDENT: No, I said I could do it. But, it's -
Q What's changed over the last 24 hours?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I'll tell you why. It's the easy way out, but Congress should do this. This is too simple. It's too basic. And Congress should do this. If they can't do it - if, at some point, they just can't do it - this is a 15-minute meeting. If they can't do it, I will declare a national emergency. I have the absolute right to do it, it says, as clear as you can.
Now, what will happen? I'll be sued. It'll be brought to the 9th Circuit. And maybe, even though the word is unambiguous, just like with the travel ban, it'll be appealed to the 9th Circuit, and we'll probably lose there, too. And then, hopefully, we'll win in the Supreme Court.
But that's what happens. You can take the most perfectly worded document, as we have in this case, and they'll always bring it to the 9th Circuit. And then you never know what's going to come out of the 9th Circuit. And you never know what's going to come out on appeal. But, fortunately, we have a Supreme Court that's treated us very fairly.
So I'd rather not do it because this is something that Congress should easily do. This is something that the Democrats should do. And I don't want to give an easy way out of something as simple as this. Not only simple, it's easy and it's going to secure our - you know, we have a country that is under siege. You could - actually, you know a lot of people don't like the word "invasion." We have a country that's being invaded by criminals and by drugs. And we're going to stop it.
So I want the Democrats to come back to Washington and vote. Thank you very much. Thank you everybody. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much everybody. Thank you.
Q And you don't have anything to say about these accusations that you're overhyping the problem?
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Thank you. Good job yesterday. I appreciate your salesmanship. I appreciate your salesmanship.
Q I didn't - I didn't see an invasion at the border, Mr. President.
THE PRESIDENT: Oh, you didn't? I know. That's because we had a wall.
Q Actually, there are portions that didn't have a wall.
THE PRESIDENT: Some people are dumb. Some people are dumb. Big promotion for us. That was a big promotion. Did you see that last night? He thought it was supposed to be the other way around. It didn't exactly work out that way. Maybe they'll reduce his salary. Like in the private sector, if you do something bad, you get fired or they reduce your salary.
Q Have a nice weekend.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. You too, Jim.
