President Donald Trump, one of the richest men in America, wants you to believe he can empathize with federal employees who are struggling to make ends meet as the partial government shutdown heads into a third week.
The shutdown, already one of the longest in U.S. history, has left an estimated 800,000 federal workers either furloughed or, if deemed essential, working without pay.
“Mr. President, can you relate to the pain of federal workers who can’t pay their bills?” a reporter asked Trump outside the White House on Sunday.
“I can relate,” the president responded. “And I’m sure that the people that are toward the receiving end will make adjustments, they always do. And they’ll make adjustments. People understand exactly what’s going on.”
“Many of those people that won’t be receiving a paycheck, many of those people agree 100 percent with what I’m doing,” he added, without evidence.