As the second week of the government shutdown looms, federal workers are feeling used by President Donald Trump as he risks their livelihood in exchange for a wall at the US-Mexico border.
Roughly 800,000 federal employees are not getting paid, and CNN legal commentator Jeffery Toobin said it is a "disgrace" that federal employees are being forced to suffer with no end in sight.
"As a former federal employee myself, I just have to think about the largely forgotten thousands of people who have mortgage payments, who have food payments, who have lives to live, some of whom have to go to work without being paid," Toobin said during a Friday panel discussion with CNN's Wolf Blitzer.
He added, "The kind of suffering that they're being forced to endure is a disgrace."
Trump said that he might declare the situation a "national emergency" in an effort to get 5 billion in funding for his border wall.
Former CIA officer Phil Mudd said there is no “emergency” at the border.
"A threat? Not yesterday, not today, not tomorrow. We dealt with declining immigration across the border," Mudd said.
Toobin said the shut down is starting to become more about the people than the politics. He then explained Trump's history of mistreatment towards federal workers.
"Remember, even before this crisis, this president signed a massive tax cut for rich people and froze the pay of all federal workers," Toobin said.
He added, "He didn't even give them cost of living increases. For the secret service agents who follow him around the golf course -- they're not going to get a raise that they were supposed to get. I mean the abuse and maltreatment of our federal workers by this president is a disgrace."
Watch the panel below via CNN.