Immigration Pelosi says Trump's border and aid threats are his 'worst ideas' yet

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Tuesday questioned who is “poisoning” President Donald Trump’s mind when it comes to immigration policy, calling his recent threat to shut down the U.S.-Mexico border and his move to cut off aid to Northern Triangle countries in Central America “one of his worst ideas."

“Stiff competition, mind you, this is one of his worst ideas,” Pelosi (D-Calif.) said of Trump’s decision to end the assistance funding to Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. “It could cover so much territory that it’s hard to say worst. This is not a good idea.”


Pelosi, speaking at a POLITICO Playbook interview, argued that cutting off the funding, which is aimed at creating stability in the so-called Northern Triangle nations, was counter-productive to stemming the surge of asylum-seeking migrants from those countries showing up at the U.S.-Mexico border.

She also pushed back on the White House’s insistence that shutting down the border would force Mexico to compromise on border operations, wondering aloud where the president was getting his ideas from and saying she didn’t think “advising” was the appropriate term to use.

“What the president seems to forget is that the border is a two-way thing. No,” she said. “Much of the activity at the border is about commerce, it’s about tourism, some of it’s about immigration — more of it now than it used to be — but it is people going back and forth, families going back and forth and the rest. The president doesn’t really understand that. So I don’t know what the basis of what he believes. He may have decided — I can’t imagine he believes that would be a good idea.

“I don’t know who is advising him there and if advising is even a word. I don’t know who’s poisoning his mind on some of these subjects,” she said. Pelosi predicted that congressional appropriators could buck the president on the issue, even in the GOP-controlled Senate, and she pushed for increasing assistance aid to the Northern Triangle region.

“I think that we should even do more, and I think that we should make sure the resources are used for the purpose that they are designed for — and that is to improve the safety and quality of life of people so they do not feel the urgency to go endanger their families, to travel so far to take the chance for seeking asylum,” Pelosi said.

Trump has long dangled the threat of shutting down the southern border, and his administration has already sought to decrease the amount of aid flowing to Central America. But over the weekend, he revived both threats with vigor, announcing that he would cut off Central American aid completely amid a recent crush of migrants arriving at the border.

The president will head to California later this week to tour part of the border amid his push for a border wall after Congress failed to override his national emergency declaration allowing him to unilaterally redirect military funds toward wall construction. Those efforts are the subject of multiple legal challenges, but the Trump administration has argued that the recent crush of migrants is a crisis in need of immediate action.

Still, Pelosi said Tuesday, “Shutting down the border and cutting off the money are probably in competition for two of his worst ideas," before quickly adding, “Let’s not forget our friend the wall.”

Asked whether she thought Trump’s threats would affect his ability to enact the renegotiated NAFTA agreement, Pelosi predicted the odds of Trump making good on his word were slim.

“Let’s regard shutting down the border as a notion. That can’t possibly rise to the level of an idea, right?” she suggested, pointing to Trump’s tendency to propose drastic measures that usually don’t pan out.

“I mean, he’s a notionmonger. That plays some places, you know. It’s an applause line, but it’s not an idea,” she said. “So let’s hope that there’s some level of maturity at the White House that says, ‘Cute, but …’”

Despite Pelosi’s optimism that Trump won’t follow through on his long-standing threat, the White House and GOP lawmakers have contended the president should be taken seriously, even though the move threatens to cause a rift between Trump and his own party, members of which have raised concerns about the economic and diplomatic fallout of taking such a dramatic step.