President Donald Trump is planning to make a primetime address to the nation on Tuesday (January 8) night. According to the New York Times, the White House has made a formal request to the television networks to pre-empt their programming. The address will begin at 9 p.m ET and Trump said on Twitter that he will speak about the "National Security crisis on our Southern Border."
The news comes after White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders announced that Trump will head to the U.S.-Mexico border on Thursday to "meet with those on the frontlines of the national security and humanitarian crisis."
The partial government shutdown is entering its third week and there is no end in sight. President Trump has demanded that any funding bills aimed at reopening the government contain over five billion dollars in funding to build a border wall between the United States and Mexico. The Democrats, who have control of the House of Representatives, have refused to fund the wall and offered measures to re-open the government without that money. Those bills are unlikely to get a vote in the Republican-controlled Senate and Trump has promised to veto them.
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