U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Tuesday night that President Donald Trump used his prime-time Oval Office address to “manufacture a crisis, stoke fear, and divert attention from the turmoil in his Administration.”

“The President of the United States — having failed to get Mexico to pay for his ineffective, unnecessary border wall, and unable to convince the Congress or the American people to foot the bill — has shut down the government,” Schumer said in a response delivered jointly with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. “American democracy doesn’t work that way. We don’t govern by temper tantrum.”

Schumer called on Trump to approve legislation ending the partial government shutdown “while allowing debate over border security to continue.”

In her remarks, Pelosi said the president’s statements during the partial shutdown have been “full of misinformation and even malice,” and accused the administration of practicing “cruel and counterproductive policies” at the southern border.

“The fact is: the women and children at the border are not a security threat, they are a humanitarian challenge,” said Pelosi, adding that “President Trump must stop holding the American people hostage, must stop manufacturing a crisis, and must re-open the government.”

Trump claimed there was a “growing humanitarian crisis” on the U.S. border with Mexico in a televised speech Tuesday night amid a partisan fight over his proposed border barrier.

In his first national address from the Oval Office since assuming the presidency, Trump described the situation on the southern border as “a crisis of the heart, a crisis of the soul,” making his case that a “steel barrier” is “absolutely critical for border security.”

The president’s remarks came amid his contentious fight with congressional Democratic lawmakers over the appropriation of more than US$5 billion he demanded for erecting the barrier to keep out illegal migrants and drug traffickers.

The dispute caused a lapse in congressional appropriations for nine Cabinet-level departments and other federal agencies, triggering a partial government shutdown that has entered the 18th day.(SD-Xinhua)