Trump gave Democrats a big ultimatum about the border wall

President Donald Trump gave a stirring speech to supporters at a rally Tuesday in Phoenix, and one of the biggest applause lines was when he issued an ultimatum about the border wall directly to Democrats in Congress.

"Now the obstructionist Democrats would like us not to do it, but believe me," Trump said, "if we have to close down our government, we're building that wall.

"Let me be very clear to Democrats in Congress who oppose a border wall and stand in the way of border security," he added.

"You are putting all of America's safety at risk, you're doing that," he said, "you're doing that. Again the border patrol today, I said, 'How important is the wall to some of the folks,' I met with a lot of them."

"And they looked at me, they said, 'It's vital. It's vital.' It's so vital," he explained. "And you know we have walls, I don't know if you know we're already starting to fix a lot of the walls we already have, because we don't have to rebuild them. And we want walls you can see through in a sense, you wanna see what's on the other side.

"But we're starting to fix a lot of the walls," he continued. "We've done a lot of work. But I said to them, 'How are we doing and how important are the walls?'"

.@POTUS: "We are building that wall." #PhoenixRally #Buildthewall

MAGA🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/lUvzQP8KHb

— 🇺🇸PATRIOT 24/7🇺🇸 (@TrumpTrain45Pac) August 23, 2017

"And they said, 'Mr. President, you have no idea. It is desperately needed,'" he recounted.

"We're gonna have our wall, we're gonna get our wall," he concluded to a large applause.

Trump's promise that he would shut down the government if he didn't get funding for the wall is an ultimatum that is sure to make Democrats take notice. Freedom Caucus congressman Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) said in an interview in July that Trump is dedicated to obtaining funding for the border wall and that he'd have Republican support in the Congress to shut down the government to do it.

Trump told supporters over and over in the run up to the 2016 election that he would build the border wall, making it one of his biggest campaign promises. The GOP has already avoided a government shutdown by caving to the Democrats on border wall funding under Trump — it remains to be seen if the ultimatum will hold in the next budget battle.