Mitch Landrieu, the former Democratic mayor of New Orleans, tore into Donald Trump on Wednesday for keeping the government shut down, saying the president is “stuck on stupid.”
During an interview with MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, the potential 2020 presidential candidate said when he was serving as mayor, he would have been buried alive (politically speaking) if he ignored the needs of his constituents and allowed the government to shut down.
“The president is way stuck on stupid right now,” Landrieu said. “If you can’t even make the government work, then you’re not doing your job.”
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Former Democratic mayor of New Orleans tells Trump to do his job and open the government. #ctl #p2 pic.twitter.com/prbVEByKZZ
— PoliticusUSA (@politicususa) January 24, 2019
Landrieu said:
One of the great generals who helped us rescue from Katrina, he said let’s not get stuck on stupid, and the president is way stuck on stupid right now. There is no mayor in America in his right mind or her right mind that would ever think about shutting down the government. This is why the people of America are really frustrated with Washington. It’s not an option. If you were a mayor and you shut down the government, they would put you in the ground figuratively within 24 hours. Right now, the president has said to us that the reason he is so insistent on the border wall is because he wants to secure the nation. And of course previously you just showed that the FBI, the ATF, the Coast Guard, the National Finance Center in New Orleans, Belle Chasse Air force – all these folks whose job it is to secure us are really now having a difficult time doing their job, so it’s having perverse consequences. The first order of business is to make the government work for the people. And if you can’t even make the government work, then you’re not doing your job. He is the chief executive officer. He is responsible for this, and I think they should just open up the government and then we can have a discussion about whatever else they think ails the country at time, which, of course, are many things.
The shutdown is proof that Trump doesn’t care about public service
As Mitch Landrieu said, the number one job of a public servant is to put the interests of your constituents above your own and to be responsive to those who elected you in the first place, regardless of the politics.
Trump’s insistence that the government should remain shut down so he can secure tax dollars for an unpopular vanity wall is proof that this isn’t how he views public service. Instead, he views it as a way to boost his own ego and image – no matter how many people he hurts in the process.
And since he has taken such great care to insulate himself in the loud but comfortable Fox News-MAGA mob bubble, he has no idea just how much damage he is doing and how many people he is hurting.
While Donald Trump is stuck on stupid, the rest of the country is forced to endure the pain of his selfish, petty government shutdown.
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Sean Colarossi currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was an organizing fellow for both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns. He also worked with Planned Parenthood as an Affordable Care Act Outreach Organizer in 2014, helping northeast Ohio residents obtain health insurance coverage.
