President Donald Trump on Wednesday morning linked the suspected terrorist attack in Strasbourg, France, to Democratic leaders' refusal to grant him the funding to build a wall on the U.S. border with Mexico.
"Another very bad terror attack in France. We are going to strengthen our borders even more. Chuck and Nancy must give us the votes to get additional Border Security!" Trump wrote on Twitter.
At least two people had died and a third was brain dead after an attack Tuesday night at a crowded street market in Strasbourg that French officials are calling an act of terrorism. At least 12 others were injured. The president has sought to depict the migrants heading for the United States as an "invasion" of criminals, even terrorists, and his requested $5 billion in funding for the border wall as an essential national security measure, despite little evidence that the migrants are anything other than refugees fleeing poverty and violence.
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"The Democrats and President Obama gave Iran 150 Billion Dollars and got nothing, but they can't give 5 Billion Dollars for National Security and a Wall?" the president wrote in a follow-up tweet.
Rémy Heitz, the Paris public prosecutor, said suspected attacker Chérif Chekatt shouted "Allahu akbar" as he opened fire on the festive crowd before escaping in a hijacked taxi, the BBC reported. He is on the run, and there is a manhunt underway by French police.
The attack occurred after a tempestuous meeting in the Oval Office Tuesday between the president and Representative Nancy Pelosi and Senator Chuck Schumer. Trump hoped to make a deal with the congressional Democratic leaders that would end the current budget impasse and avoid a government shutdown before Christmas.
When Pelosi and Schumer made it clear that the president would not get their approval for the $5 billion in funding for the border wall, the president said he would take responsibility for any shutdown if they failed to reach a budget agreement, saying he would be "proud to shut down the government for border security."
It undercut the message of Trump's own Republicans in Congress that the Democrats are to blame for blockading the budget and risking a shutdown.
Speaking on MSNBC's Hardball Tuesday night, Los Angeles Times White House reporter Eli Stokols that the meeting "frustrated" Trump.
Stokols said that after Pelosi and Schumer left the Oval Office, Trump "stormed out" and headed into an anteroom with his briefing papers, "and he just scattered them out of frustration, threw them across the room."
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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