From the September 16 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends Sunday:
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PETE HEGSETH (CO-HOST): Well it's -- Republicans love to bask in the glow of this president when it helps them. But often times -- that's right -- but often times on Capitol Hill establishment Republicans and others, they haven't quite been able to get to some of the basics of this president's agenda to include the wall. So we got a big funding budget battle coming up this month. A lot of your political types in Washington worried how it might affect the 2018 midterms. President has said in the past, “I'll shut the government down if I don't get my funding for the wall.” The president last night tweeted this in frustration -- it's really the only way you can frame it. He said, “When will Republican leadership learn that they are being played like a fiddle by the Democrats on border security and building the wall? Without borders we don't have a country. With open borders, which the Democrats want, we have nothing but crime. Finish the wall!” And Katie this feels like a president who maybe went along -- was going along with a deal to not to shut the government down but in his gut he's saying, “This is good issue for me. I'm fighting against Washington that doesn't want this.”
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This is the guy who is in the White House because he ignored the so-called expert political instincts of all the insiders. He said, “I'm throwing your welcome binder out, OK? I'm going to do it my own way.” And this is one of them. The whole intelligentsia of Washington -- you know it, Ed -- they're all saying, “You can't shut it down. Republicans will be to blame.” I say he test that theory and he says, “I'm going to show you down still and shut you down. And I'm going to say it's because I'm still fighting the swamp, including my own party, because I was on” -- I was at that rally in Montana with the president. Build the wall remains the biggest mantra of his supporters. They want him to follow through on that. They know he wants it. And they know the right is stop -- even Republicans stopping him. Now might be the time.
