House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) warned President Donald Trump on Sunday that “the same thing will repeat itself” if he asks for $8.6 billion to build a border wall.
Reuters first reported Sunday, citing unnamed officials familiar with the plan, that Trump will ask for the sum in a 2020 budget request plan set to be released Monday. The Wall Street Journal and CNN subsequently confirmed the reporting.
Schumer and Pelosi, in a joint statement preempting the budget request, said “President Trump hurt millions of Americans and caused widespread chaos when he recklessly shut down the government to try to get his expensive and ineffective wall, which he promised would be paid for by Mexico.”
“Congress refused to fund his wall and he was forced to admit defeat and reopen the government. The same thing will repeat itself if he tries this again,” the statement continued. “We hope he learned his lesson.”
Trump previously threatened to shut down the government — and then did so, for a record-breaking 35 days — over Democrats’ refusal to support spending $5 billion for his desired border wall. And he recently declared a national emergency in order to secure more funds for a wall than Congress had allocated.
After the record-breaking shutdown ended in January, White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said in an interview that “yeah,” Trump would be willing to shut down the government again over his demands for border wall funding.
