he mentioned drugs six times. crime or criminal five times. he said the word gang three times. he only said shutdown once. he said federal worker nos ti e times. didn t mention them at all. what was your reaction to the speech? he also didn t say the words i and so many people in america hoped he would say that he s going to immediately open up the government. believe it or not, a couple of nights ago i joined volunteers in downtown washington, d.c. outside where many federal agencies are and served dinners to federal workers. it was hard to watch fbi uniformed police officers standing in line to get dinner because they are work so hard, so bravely and not getting paid. one person leaned in to me as i was serving a chicken sandwich and soup and asked if i could give her two more for her kids at home. this is the united states of
now they don t have any money at all. when you talk to republicans, how do they justify linking, giving people back the pay they have earned, that they are still earning working for free, linking that to a fake border crisis they ve got to know isn t real. they seem to be completely aligned with the president on this point. they say this is the democrats are the ones obstructing a deal on this. the house of representatives the president already said he owns the shutdown. i don t think federal workers talking about how they have been so affected will move the president at all. once we start to see how this is affecting our national security because it will start to affect our national security in a real way that could change the calculus here. i get e-mails from current federal workers, current fbi agents, current tsa workers daily saying this is unsustainable.
trump said there is a crisis of drug smuggling. the coast guard is part of the first line of defense. if they are panicking what does that do to our safety? it s common ens isense f. yoe people we depend upon for security and our leaders inflict upon them personal stress, stress to their families and themselves and their personal lives, you are compromising their ability to work, to focus on their jobs. they have to take up the slack for those who are furloughed in the midst of planning something as large, for example, as the state of the union which is on hold or the super bowl. hundreds, if not thousands of federal law enforcement personnel are dedicated to the super bowl. right. in two weeks. it s common sense. but beyond that, even if the shutdown ended tomorrow, the damage we have done to our homeland security, i believe, will be long-term in terms of morale, attrition, a lot of
members of the coast guard may think twice about reenlisting creating a retention and a recruitment dilemma for us. speaking of problems we can t just unwind when the shutdown ends, cyber security. dhs is responsible for the cyber security. there is a cyber security center in washington. many people are furloughed. i drove past dhs headquarters in washington, nebraska avenue. you have thousands of people dedicated to supporting the senior leadership of homeland security including the secretary, deputy secretary. when i drove past wednesday at health care, the parking lot was empty. if i had an empty parking lot to support me when i had to do my job, my job would be compromised. we are now into the second month of this. just in closing, what do you make of the fact that donald trump didn t mention this yesterday when he gave his
america. these are working class folks. we see that just one paycheck being missed for so many of us can really just knock us off course and set us back. so people want to hear he s going to open the government. they don t want him to negotiate away the issue by asking us to accept a wall so he releases federal workers or he gives a path for the dreamers. they just want government open. yeah. to your point, i want to show the audience and hopefully you can see it where you are. this is a report from our nbc washington bureau. tracy wilkins is the reporter on it. showing federal workers lining up to get food due to the shutdown. take a look. reporter: many folks in the line worked for the federal government for decades. 30-something years. reporter: and don t know what it is like to go without a check. that s how nicole feels. i think i cry every day. reporter: this mom who works for the irs. i have two sons. they know.