President Donald Trump responded to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s declaration that she will not provide wall funding to his administration during congressional negotiations happening on Capitol Hill, in a Thursday Oval Office session with reporters.
“You will have so many people coming into our country that Nancy Pelosi will be begging for a wall,” Trump said of Pelosi, after previously declaring that “without a wall it doesn’t work.” The president referenced migrant caravans massing in Central America, intent on making their way to the U.S. southern border.
Pelosi flatly declared Thursday, “there will not be any wall money in legislation” that is presented to Trump as a result of bipartisan negotiations. The fight over border wall funding has consumed U.S. politics in the previous month with Trump partially shutting down the U.S. government for nearly three weeks in order to try t0 force Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to come up with a funding agreement for a southern border wall.
U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer pose for photographers after concluding their joint response, to President Trump’s prime time address, on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., January 8, 2019. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
Democrats, however, remained united in their demand that they would only offer Trump $1.6 billion in border security funding — despite his request for $5.7 billion — which could not be used for the wall. Trump instead reopened the government last week while a bipartisan committee tried to forge a solution to his demand, saying that if they could not come to a solution, he would declare a national emergency and build the wall with military funds. The president maintains his demand for $5.7 billion in border wall funding. (RELATED: Trump Says DACA For Wall Deal ‘Highly Unlikely’)
The president told The Daily Caller in an exclusive Oval Office interview Wednesday evening that “there are numerous things we could do, including declaring a national emergency where we have very good law on our side.”
He reiterated that he will “declare a national emergency if this doesn’t work out.”