Pelosi says she'll meet with Trump "anytime" but not for a "photo-op"
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she would meet with President Trump "anytime he wants" as she pressed for an end to the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. However, she said there are currently no plans for a meeting with the president. "The last time we met it was a photo-op for the president to leave the room," she said at her weekly press conference on Capitol Hill.
Pelosi spoke hours after the president acceded to her request that he postpone his State of the Union address until after the government reopens. "I'm glad we got that off the table," she told reporters, adding, "It's so unimportant in the lives of the American people."
There is no clear path to ending the shutdown, though both the House and Senate are considering measures to reopen the government.
In a tweet during her press conference, Mr. Trump commented, "Nancy just said she 'just doesn't understand why?' Very simply, without a Wall it all doesn't work. Our Country has a chance to greatly reduce Crime, Human Trafficking, Gangs and Drugs. Should have been done for decades. We will not Cave!"
Pelosi's remark — "I don't quite understand why as hundreds of thousands of men and women are about to miss a second paycheck tomorrow" — was referring to a comment made earlier in the day by Trump Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross. In a CNBC interview, Ross, whose net worth is in the hundreds of millions, said he doesn't understand why federal employees would need assistance from food banks, when they should be able to secure loans to ride out the shutdown.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said he plans to stay in town this weekend, and he will ask other congressional leaders to do the same to solve the shutdown. "I'm requesting that the leaders get together tomorrow, all of us, stay in the room until we solve this problem," he told reporters. "The president is right. It only takes 45 minutes."
The House used mostly party-line votes Wednesday to approve legislation to reopen government agencies through February. By a similar tally, the chamber voted to finance most shuttered agencies through September.
Growing numbers of House Democrats say the party should show where it stands on border security. According to a new CBS News poll, Americans aren't convinced that the government should remain shuttered over funding for a border wall.
Seven in 10 Americans don't think the issue of a border wall is worth a government shutdown, which they say is now having a negative impact on the country, the poll found. But partisans don't want their own side to budge: 65 percent of Republicans say President Trump should refuse a budget unless it includes wall funding, and 69 percent of Democrats think congressional Democrats should keep refusing to fund it.