Outnumbered hosts claim Trump didn't threaten a shut down “if we don't get what we want,” moments after he did just that

President Trump: “If we don't get what we want... I will shut down the government. Absolutely, and I am proud.”

Written by Media Matters Staff

Published

Harris Faulker and Melissa Francis, two of the co-hosts on Fox News' Outnumbered, vehemently denied that President Donald Trump threatened to shut down the government unless he gets what he wants in negotiations with congressional leaders. Fellow co-host Marie Harf noted that during a meeting with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) (who will likely be the speaker of the House in January), Trump said he would accept blame for a government shutdown if he did not get what he wanted from the Democratic leaders. Francis and Faulkner responded by arguing, “That's not what he said.” 

In reality, the president told Schumer, “If we don't get what we want, one way or the other, whether it's through you, through a military, through anything you want to call, I will shut down the government. ”

From the December 11 edition of Fox News' Outnumbered:  

HARRIS FAULKNER (CO-HOST): Alright, so, you had the Democrats in the room. And who didn't you want to be? Maybe Vice President Pence because he was just -- it was like watching a tennis match back and forth. How do you think your political side did? 

MARIE HARF (CO-HOST): I think they stood up to the president quite strongly, which I like in a couple of ways. When the president tried to sort of go back and forth with [Rep.] Nancy Pelosi, they engaged with him. The most important thing I heard from Democrats was when [Sen.] Chuck Schumer said, we have a deal that the Democrats and the Republicans both support to avoid a shutdown. That's why we're here. It's not to fix the immigration system writ large, it's to avoid a shutdown. We can pass it in a bipartisan manner, get it to your desk today. And the president said, I'll accept the blame. If it's not what I want -- it's not what I want -- I will let it shut down.

FAULKER: That's not what he said. 

MELISSA FRANCIS (CO-HOST): That's not what he said.

HARF: That's exactly what he said.

FRANCIS: Let me get into the conversation today. 

HARF: That's exactly what he said.

FRANCIS: No, what he said was that we all want border security. And he said, yes, I will take a shutdown if you guys will not pass border security. Doesn't everyone want border security?

HARF: As he defines it.

FRANCIS: It's about the semantics of it. As you define it, as he defines it, as Chuck and Nancy define it, and it is such BS. I think everybody in the audience just wants to call BS on the whole thing because we all know you're not talking about a wall versus not a wall. They're talking about the same thing. Enhanced border security all over the place. Why don't we call it a big fuzzy teddy bear? So that we don't have to fight over the word “wall” anymore. I mean it was ridiculous but it was nice rather than having people go to the microphone and stand there and just pontificate, to see them actually go back and forth and call each other out -- I thought was really instructive and fantastic. 

Previously: 

Laura Ingraham: Trump should shut down the government because if he doesn't “get this wall built... we've lost the country anyway”

Fox & Friends guest encourages a GOP government shutdown for Trump's border wall: “Shut down government”

When Trump told Fox that presidents were to blame for government shutdowns