Thursday on MSNBC’s “The Beat,” Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI) said Democrats can not negotiate a solution to the government shutdown with President Donald Trump because he was “a hostage taking amoral person who makes no distinction between right or wrong.”

Hirono said, “I think most of us live in the real world where people need their paychecks to pay their bills and keep a roof over their heads and put it on the table. That’s where most people live. But obviously not our commerce secretary, who said, ‘why can’t they go out and get a loan.’ This administration has an unlimited capacity in their lack of empathy. So the president is not somebody we can negotiate with because for one, he’s a hostage taking amoral person who makes no distinction between right or wrong. So I think that the compromise must be forged at the legislative level, that’s congressional. And we should pass these bills to get the government running and then we can have all kind of discussions about border security —which we all support, by the way—and the other things that the president wants.”

She added, “I think the reason that he took hostages is, he cannot make a valid argument for a multi-billion dollar wall, because you know the $5.7 is only a down payment. He can’t justify that wall on its own, on its merit. So he needs to take 800,000 people and contractors hostage. That’s who we are dealing with, with the president of the United States, an amoral, lying person whose mind is changed at a whim, and I guess if Ann Coulter yells at him he turns into a total wimp.”

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