House Speaker Nancy Pelosi accused President Trump Thursday of a set-up in their meeting a day earlier, when the president walked out after she told him she’ll never allow him funding for his border wall.
Mrs. Pelosi also questioned the president’s motives, saying he’s negotiating from a position of weakness.
“I don’t even know if the president wants the wall. He wants a debate on the wall,” she said.
The California Democrat has said she would allow a single dollar to go to the wall if it ended the shutdown but has said the president’s current $5.7 billion request is a no-go.
Mrs. Pelosi also said the border fight is not about national security.
“It really isn’t,” she said.
Mrs. Pelosi met with Mr. Trump at the White House on Wednesday in what turned out to be an abbreviated negotiation.
She demanded the president immediately reopen the government, and he asked her if he signed short-term bills to do so, whether she would be willing to approve border wall money before the next deadline.
She refused, and he said there was no point in negotiating any longer, and he left the room.
“I think it was a set-up so he could walk out,” Mrs. Pelosi told reporters.
She also sounded cool to reports that some Republicans are floating a deal to reopen the government and grant citizenship rights to perhaps millions of illegal immigrants in exchange for the president getting his border wall money.
Mrs. Pelosi did not rule out that possibility but said she believes the debate over illegal immigrant “Dreamers” and the DACA program should be part of a broad push to legalize most illegal immigrants.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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