Pelosi's Own House Maj. Leader Just Defied Her About the Wall on National TV
Throughout the still-ongoing partial government shutdown, Democratic Party leader and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has adamantly refused to grant President Donald Trump’s request for border wall funding. Pelosi and others in her party have referred to the proposed border wall as being “immoral,” “racist” and wholly ineffective at stopping illicit cross-border traffic.
However, while Pelosi may remain staunchly opposed to any sort of negotiations with Trump that would include the appropriation of taxpayer funds for border wall construction, there are signs that not everybody in her party may be quite as strong in their resistance against working with Trump on this issue.
Reports had already begun to circulate in the past week that some members of the Democratic caucus were signaling an openness to granting Trump the requested funding in exchange for some unspecified liberal priority on immigration — such as a possible trade for legal status for enrollees of the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program — if only to bring an end to the lengthy shutdown, and now it appears that even a top House Democrat has undermined Pelosi’s obstinate refusal to negotiate by contradicting her messaging.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer appeared on Fox News‘ “Special Report” with anchor Bret Baier on Wednesday, and proceeded to suggest that border walls were, in fact, not immoral or racist, and were actually quite effective in some locations, even contradicting himself in one instance.
Following some dialogue about the dust-up between Pelosi and Trump over the State of the Union address scheduled for Jan. 29, as well as the stalled negotiations over the partial government shutdown, the conversation soon shifted to focus on the proposed border wall.
After a few moments, Baier played a clip of Pelosi righteously intoning that a border wall was an “immorality,” but when pressed by Baier if he agreed with that characterization, Hoyer disagreed.
Hoyer said, “Look, I don’t think this is an issue of morality, it’s an issue of does it work.” He then cited a few top Republicans who allegedly have said that walls don’t really work.
A moment later, he added, “My own view is, this is not an issue of morality. A wall is immoral if it tries to imprison people who shouldn’t be imprisoned, but a wall that protects people is not immoral. I think the issue is whether it works.”
Baier then referenced a remark from a rising Democrat star, Texas Rep. Robert “Beto” O’Rourke, who called the proposed border wall a “racist reaction to a racist myth,” but Hoyer expressed his disagreement with that characterization as well.
Hoyer said, “I don’t talk in those terms and I don’t think that’s the way we ought to look at it.” He then again referenced supposed Republicans in Congress who thought walls didn’t work to buttress Democratic opposition to the idea.
Following the “walls don’t work” argument to its logical conclusion, Baier asked if Hoyer would support a measure to remove all existing barriers from the border, and that is when Hoyer totally contradicted his own messaging about the purported ineffectiveness of walls.
Hoyer said “No,” he would not support removing existing border barriers and fencing, to which Baier replied quizzically, “So they work there?”
The majority leader began to ramble on with a non-answer, which prompted Baier to interject, “So they work some places?” Hoyer replied, “Obviously they work in some places.”
Hoyer eventually stated that he was prepared to work with the president to secure the border. Baier asked if he would be willing to reach a compromise on some border security funding, and Hoyer replied, “I think there can be a compromise position,” and suggested perhaps a special commission or the border state governors getting together to determine what would be the best approach.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer completely undermined the ridiculous narratives his own party has been pushing about a border wall being immoral, racist and ineffective, and signaled an openness to reaching a compromise solution. The only question that remains is, will his view prevail over that of Pelosi and his rabid leftist base, or will he bow to their #Resistance against all things Trump and continue to obstruct any sort of progress on the issue.
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