President Trump used his first-ever prime time Oval Office address on Tuesday night to make his case for funding a southern border wall as well as to emphasize the the detrimental effects of what he called the “growing humanitarian and security crisis” of illegal immigration.

The speech, which was followed moments later by a rebuttal from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Senator Bernie Sanders, outlined the President’s key concerns and goals going forward as Republicans and Democrats plan to meet Wednesday to continue negotiations to end the ongoing partial federal government shutdown over border wall funding, now in its third week.

President Trump noted that “more Americans will die from drugs this year than were killed in the entire Vietnam War,” the president pleading to close the vast pipeline that permits “vast quantities of illegal drugs – including meth, heroin, cocaine and fentanyl” to cross the border.

“Every week, 300 of our citizens are killed by heroin alone – 90 percent of which floods across from our southern border,” Trump, who signed a bipartisan opioid bill into law late last year, remarked at the beginning of his address, continuing voicing the importance of fighting the opioid crisis.

“This is a humanitarian crisis – a crisis of the heart and a crisis of the soul. Last month, 20,000 migrant children were illegally brought into the United States – a dramatic increase. These children are used as human pawns by vicious coyotes and ruthless gangs. One in three women are sexually assaulted on the dangerous trek up through Mexico. Women and children are the biggest victims by far of our broken system.”

President Trump warned Democrats last Friday that the partial government shutdown could last “years” and stated he could even declare a “national emergency” to bypass Congress if necessary.