Donald Trump continue to support his assertion that federal workers are fine without getting paid the government shutdown, because they are “patriots” who support his border wall.

During a bill signing in the Oval Office on Wednesday, Trump was asked by a reporter, “what do you say to federal workers who are now working without pay?”

Trump responded, “I think they have been terrific. They’re terrific patriots. A lot of them agree with what I’m doing… the people out there want something to happen at our southern border.”

Another reporter then doubled down, asking, “But these people have to go without their paychecks. Some are being forced to work without pay. Some have been furloughed…”

Trump then responded with a bizarre riff about his social media accounts.

“If you take a look at social media, so many of those people are saying ‘it’s very hard for me and my family, but president, you’re doing the right thing. Get it done.'”

REPORTER: But these people are going w/o paychecks. They can't wait for a comprehensive immigration bill.

TRUMP: "If you take a look at social media, so many of those people are
saying 'it's very hard for me & my family, but POTUS, you're doing the right thing. Get it done.'" pic.twitter.com/RhuQivsdHN

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 9, 2019

This isn’t the first time has made this claim.

During his press conference last Friday, Trump claimed that federal workers are just fine not getting paid because they want the wall more.

The president said, “This really does have a higher purpose than next week’s pay. And the people that won’t get next week’s pay or the following week’s pay––I think if you ever really looked at those people, I think they’d say, ‘Mr. President, keep going. This is far more important.’”

Trump also made a similar claim on Christmas day, when he said that federal workers supported his position in the fight with Democrats over billions of dollars in funding for the border wall.

“Many of those workers have said to me and communicated, ‘stay out until you get the funding for the wall,’” he said, when asked for his message to the hundreds of thousands of federal workers either furloughed or working without pay.

“These federal workers want the wall,” he added. “The only one that doesn’t want the wall are the Democrats.”

This of course is not true.

The American Federation of Government Employees, which represents more than 700,000 federal workers, spoke out against the shutdown, noting that there “should be no confusion” about how federal employees feel about being out of a paying job.

“They are eager to get back to work,” the federation’s president, Jeffrey David Cox Sr., said in a statement.

“They unequivocally oppose using shutdowns as a means of resolving policy disputes. This is not about a wall, this is about 800,000 real people with real families and real bills to pay,” he said.

Paul Shearon, the president of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, took an even stronger stance, calling the president’s claims entirely “false.” “We have not heard from a single member who supports the President’s inaction,” he said. “Most view this as an act of ineptitude.”