Republican slams Trump’s refusal to sign funding bill: 'We weren’t sent to Washington to burn the place down’

Texas Republican congressman Will Hurd slammed President Donald Trump's refusal to sign the continuing resolution funding the government because it didn't include funding for his border wall, saying that despite frequent GOP rhetoric to the contrary, telling MSNBC on Thursday he wasn't sent to Washington "to burn the place down."

Asked by host Ali Velshi to offer his opinion on "where things stand," Hurd laid down his burden.

"Where things stand is that the American people actually sent us up to Washington, D.C., to get things done, not burn the place down, so we should be able to fund the government," Hurd said. He added that the House should vote anyway to see if they had enough vote to override a veto. But when he turned to the president's insistence on a wall, the congressman let loose.

"This fallacy that a wall equals border security," he said. "I spent a decade as an undercover officer in the CIA chasing bad guys. We are monitoring or keeping track of the wrong metric."

"It's not how many miles of wall that's going to keep us safe, it's are we keeping bad people and keeping drugs out of our country," Hurd reiterated, saying the answer was manpower and technology. "Building a wall from sea to shining sea is the most expensive and least effective way to do border security."

Watch the video below.