The story appears on

Page A2

January 4, 2019

GET this page in PDF

Free for subscribers

View shopping cart

Related News

HomeWorld

Trump tells Pelosi the Vatican has a wall

NO one budged at US President Donald Trump’s closed-door meeting with congressional leaders.

So the partial government shutdown over his demand for billions of dollars to build a wall along the US border with Mexico remained in place.

They’ll all try again today.

In public, Trump renewed his dire warnings of rapists and others at the border.

But when pressed in private by Democrats asking why he wouldn’t end the shutdown, he responded at one point: “I would look foolish if I did that.” In one big shift, the new Congress convenes with Democrats taking majority control of the House, and Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said they’d quickly pass legislation to re-open the government without funds for Trump’s border wall.

“There is no amount of persuasion he can use” to get her to fund his wall, Pelosi said.

“We can go through the back and forth. No. How many more times can we say no?”

But the White House has rejected the Democratic package, and Republicans who control the Senate are hesitant to take it up without Trump on board.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell called it a “total nonstarter.”

Trump said ahead of his White House session with the congressional leaders that the partial shutdown will last “as long as it takes” to get the funding he wants.

At another point, Trump told Pelosi that, as a “good Catholic,” she should support the wall because Vatican City has a wall.

But Democrats have said they don’t want medieval barriers, and Pelosi has called Trump’s proposed wall along the US-Mexico border immoral.

White House spokesman Hogan Gidley said that Pelosi will be “more able to negotiate” once she is elected speaker.

Trump also rejected his own administration’s offer to accept US$2.5 billion for the wall. That proposal was made when Vice President Mike Pence and other top officials met at the start of the shutdown with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who left saying they remained far apart.

Trump has repeatedly pushed for the US$5.6 billion he has demanded.

Trump said the current border is “like a sieve” and noted the tear gas “flying” to deter arrivals.

“If they knew they couldn’t come through, they wouldn’t even start,” he said.

With no negotiations over the holidays, Trump complained he had been “lonely” at the White House, having skipped his getaway to Mar-a-Lago in Florida.

He claimed his only companions were the “machine gunners,” referring to security personnel, and “they don’t wave, they don’t smile.”

He also criticized Pelosi for visiting Hawaii.

The partial government shutdown began on December 22.


 

Copyright 漏 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.

娌叕缃戝畨澶 31010602000204鍙

Email this to your friend