House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday said she’s prepared to meet face-to-face with President Trump “anytime” to negotiate how to end the ongoing partial government shutdown.
“It’s the president of the United States,” she said. “[We’d] meet with him anytime he wants to meet, and I’ve never discouraged anybody from meeting with the president.”
Mrs. Pelosi and Mr. Trump have been engaged in a war of correspondence since they last met at the White House — a meeting the president walked out of after Mrs. Pelosi indicated she would not support funding a border wall if the president agreed to open up the government.
“We have met…the last time we met, it was a photo op for the president to leave the room,” the California Democrat told reporters at her weekly press conference.
Mrs. Pelosi last week suggested to the president that he reschedule the State of the Union Address from the planned Jan. 29 date or deliver it in writing, citing the government shutdown.
The president on Wednesday said in a letter to the speaker that he was still planning to deliver the speech from the House chamber, prompting Mrs. Pelosi to write back that she wouldn’t take up a joint resolution allowing him to do so as long as the government was shut down.
Mr. Trump said late Wednesday he would plan to deliver the address when the shutdown is over.
Mrs. Pelosi said Thursday that when she originally extended the invitation to Mr. Trump on Jan. 3, she anticipated that the government would be open again by the end of the month.
“What has changed is that the Senate has refused to take yes for an answer,” she said. “I guess I had better hopes for the concern that the Republicans in the Senate might have for the concerns of working people in our country.”
The speaker also denied that House Democrats were negotiating a border security counter-offer to Mr. Trump “behind the scenes,” saying that they are doing “what we have been doing all along.”
“We have been working on our congressional responsibility to write appropriations bills to keep government open,” she said.
Top House Democrats on Wednesday said they were prepping a package of border security priorities that could total $5.7 billion, but wouldn’t include funding for new border wall construction.
Mrs. Pelosi said “our commitment to border security” would be reflected in a forthcoming homeland security funding bill.
“That’s not any negotiation behind the scenes or anything like that,” she said. “Within our $49 billion homeland security bill, there will be some provisions.”
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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