President Donald Trump slammed congressional Democrats for holding out on funding the Department of Homeland Security amid threats of terrorism from Iran.
When asked about reports that Iran has activated terrorist sleeper cells abroad, Trump said his administration is “very much on top of it,” though the ongoing DHS shutdown is a challenge.
“One of the things we have to do is get the Democrats to stop the Democrat shutdown,” he said. “Because, as you know, the apparatus that looks into that [Senate Minority Leader Chuck] Schumer and the Democrats have shut it down, which tells you they probably hate our country a lot, but the Democrats have to open that up.”
The agency has been shut down for 24 days over Democrat demands to reform Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Trump said he has “very, very good intelligence” on Iran’s sleeper cells. However, he said the shutdown prevents the administration from handling them as they want.
“We know a lot of different things that have happened that have been very bad,” he said. “A lot of them came in during the Biden period.”
“We’re watching every single one of them,” he added of the sleeper cells. “Yeah, we know a lot about them. The biggest problem we have is a Democrat shutdown. We know a lot about them, but the shutdown doesn’t allow us to do what we have to do.”
When asked if the war would be finished this week, Trump said it would not, but reiterated that it will be done soon, when he is confident Iran won’t be immediately able to resume developing a nuclear weapon.
“Two levels of leadership are gone,” Trump said. “Most people have never even heard about the leaders that they’re talking about. So it’s obviously been very, very effective.”
“It’s the beginning of building a new country,” Trump said, “but they have no navy, they have no air force, they have no anti-aircraft equipment. It’s all been blown up.”
