Trump accuses Democrats of taking Americans hostage

US President Donald Trump has accused opposition Democrats of taking Americans hostage by their demands, which according to him triggered the current shutdown of the government at the first anniversary of his inauguration.

In an early Saturday morning tweet, Trump said Democrats “could have easily made a deal to avert the closure, but instead, they decided to "play shutdown politics."

The government shutdown, first in five years, went into effect shortly after Friday midnight, when Senate Republicans and Democrats did not reach an agreement on a stopgap funding measure to continue government services.

The bill failed after Democrats tried to attach protections to fund a program, known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) that protects 700,000 "Dreamers" -- undocumented immigrants who arrived in the US as children -- from deportation.

Democrats, for their part, blamed Republicans for the closure, accusing them of “poisoning chances” of the deal and pandering to Trump's populist base by refusing to fund the program.

Trump, however, tweeted, “Democrats are far more concerned with Illegal Immigrants than they are with our great Military or Safety at our dangerous Southern Border.”

“We will not negotiate the status of unlawful immigrants while Democrats hold our lawful citizens hostage over their reckless demands. This is the behavior of obstructionist losers, not legislators,” he added.

“This is the One Year Anniversary of my Presidency and the Democrats wanted to give me a nice present," wrote the president.

Republican majority leader Mitch McConnell also echoed Trump’s language, but Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer pointed the finger directly at the president. He blamed Trump for leading him to believe a deal was possible on the immigration dispute but then failing to bring his own party along.

“It’s almost as if you were rooting for a shutdown and now we’ll have one and the blame should crash entirely on President Trump’s shoulders,” said Schumer.

Schumer said he had even offered to discuss the president’s top priority; the possibility of building a wall along the border with Mexico, which “was not enough to entice the president to finish the deal.”

As both parties are accusing the other of causing the closure, The Washington Post released a poll, indicating more people think Republicans would be to blame for a shutdown than Democrats by more than 20 points.

Republican senators said early Saturday morning that they've gotten a promise from Senate leadership to agree to bring up a deal for young undocumented immigrants by early next month. 

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