Lady Gaga calls out Trump and Pence on shutdown

Team Udayavani, Jan 21, 2019, 6:04 AM IST

Los Angeles: Lady Gaga slammed US President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence on the ongoing federal government shutdown during her Las Vegas residency.

On January 19, the pop star stopped her gig to say her piece on the current scenario while she was performing “Million Reasons” on the piano.

“If the f**king president of the United States could please put our government back… There are people who live paycheck to paycheck and need their money,” she said.

Gaga then took aim at Pence, whose wife Karen is facing flak for accepting a job at a school that excludes LGBT and trans candidates. The “Shallow” hitmaker also called the vice president “the worst representation of what it means to be a Christian”.

“And to Mike Pence, who thinks it’s acceptable that his wife works at a school that bans LGBTQ – you’re wrong. You say we should not discriminate against Christianity…

“I am a Christian woman, and what I do know about Christianity is that we bear no prejudice and everybody is welcome. So you can take all that disgrace, Mr Pence, and you can look yourself in the mirror and you’ll find it right there,” she said as the audience applauded in agreement.

On Sunday, Trump launched a new “compromise” plan to end the shutdown by offering protection from deportations for some 700,000 undocumented immigrants in exchange for USD 5.7 billion for constructing a controversial wall on the US-Mexico border.

The Democrats, however, rejected it as “non-starter”. The shutdown — the longest in the US history — entered a month on Sunday.