Trump: No Infrastructure Efforts Until Congress Ends Investigations

Unless Congress ends its investigation into President Donald Trump’s campaign, no work to modernize American infrastructure will occur, the president said Wednesday after abruptly walking out of a planned meeting with Democrats on the topic.

“I want to do infrastructure, I want to do it more than you,” Trump said in a Rose Garden news conference after ending his planned meeting at which Democratic congressional leaders said they'd expected to discuss infrastructure funding.

“But you can’t do it under these circumstances, so get these phony investigations over with,” Trump said. “When they get everything done, I’m all set.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer also quickly called a news conference after Trump’s, and said they had hoped to work with Trump to figure out how to pay for a massive infrastructure bill that would modernize transportation, boost rural and inner-city broadband and upgrade the electric grid.

"He just took a pass," Pelosi said.

Be Like Ike

Pelosi likened the possibilities for a modernization push to some of the massive national improvement moves of the past, including Eisenhower’s interstate highway system, Theodore Roosevelt’s creation of the national parks and even the Lewis and Clark expedition of Jefferson’s presidency, which laid the groundwork for westward expansion.

“We had hoped we could do something comparable,” Pelosi said. “Unfortunately, the president isn’t ready for that.”

Schumer held up a 35-page plan on infrastructure improvement ideas as a way of showing Democrats were ready to talk details.

“We came here very seriously,” Schumer said. “We are interested in doing infrastructure. It’s clear the president isn’t.”

ATA: Trump Holds Key To Passing Infrastructure Package

President Donald Trump speaks to reporters Monday on the South Lawn of the White House. Photo by Joyce Boghosian.

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