Nancy Pelosi says funding for Trump's 'immoral, ineffective, expensive' border wall is off the table
- Nancy Pelosi called for a yearlong continuing resolution on funding for homeland security.
- Pelosi dismissed a compromise of exchanging border wall funding for a DACA solution.
- The likely next speaker of the House called the construction of a border wall "immoral, ineffective, expensive."
WASHINGTON - Nancy Pelosi, who is slated to become the next speaker of the House when the new Congress begins in January, shot down negotiations that would include funding for President Donald Trump's long-desired wall along the nearly 2,000-mile US-Mexico border.
Pelosi told reporters on Thursday that pairing wall funding with a permanent solution to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program was not on the table and that she would prefer Congress pass a continuing resolution for Homeland Security before Christmas.
"What we want in this negotiation, I can say, and it wouldn't be a surprise to anybody is we'd like to just go in and say it's December. We've lost now another week - for a legitimate purpose - but nonetheless, we're getting closer to when this CR expires," Pelosi said.
"I think what we can do that makes sense is to pass the six bills where the members of the Appropriations Committee have come to terms - you've heard me say it over and over - leave them to their own devices," she added. "The appropriators can come to a good conclusion and then have a CR only for homeland security as we go forward. And that's pretty much where our position is right now."
Pelosi also dismissed the prospect of a short-term continuing resolution to be tackled again in January, instead wanting a year-long agreement for homeland security.
"But even if you have a CR for a full year, that doesn't mean that at some point if you come to another conclusion you can pass a bill," she said. "But you can't do this week to - I mean there's too much uncertainty involved."
Wall funding being on the table in a Democratic-controlled House is not likely either, as Pelosi called the construction of border wall "immoral, ineffective, expensive."
"[Trump] also promised Mexico would pay for it, so even if they did, it's immoral still and they're not going to pay for it," she said.