House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) once again insisted at her press conference Thursday that “there's not going to be any wall money” in legislation to prevent another partial government shutdown as negotiations continue on the issue. Pelosi did signal openness to “infrastructure” and “fencing.”
“If they have some suggestions about certain localities where technology, some infrastructure, I said about the ports of entry, we might need more ports of entry, we might need some roads,” she said. “That’s part of the negotiation.”
“Many places on the border there are cliffs, there's a river, and there are 600 miles of something. Three-hundred [miles] of them are Normandy fences,” she said.“Three-hundred miles of this so that cars cannot go by.”
“If the president wants to call that a wall, he can call it a wall,” she concluded. “Are there places where enhanced fencing, Normandy fencing, will work? Let them have that discussion.”
The now largely semantic debate of a wall as opposed to barriers or fencing continues as Democrats participate in talks with the White House about Trump’s demand for $5 billion for a border wall. Government funding is due to run out once again on February 15th.
In a series of tweets Thursday morning, President Trump expressed frustration with the Democrats’ unwillingness to work with him on the issue.
Large sections of WALL have already been built with much more either under construction or ready to go. Renovation of existing WALLS is also a very big part of the plan to finally, after many decades, properly Secure Our Border. The Wall is getting done one way or the other!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 31, 2019
Lets just call them WALLS from now on and stop playing political games! A WALL is a WALL!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 31, 2019
In the Oval Office Thursday afternoon Trump said Pelosi was "playing games," emphasizing, "if they don't give us a wall it doesn't work."