NEW REPORT: Pelosi Ready To CAVE On The Border Wall?

Here are more details of that new report, from the NYT:

Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California said on Wednesday that she would be willing to endorse any bipartisan border security agreement that emerges from House-Senate negotiations, leaving the success of those talks largely hinging on President Trump’s endorsement.

With administration officials on Capitol Hill for the State of the Union address on Tuesday, Ms. Pelosi said she told Vice President Mike Pence that she hoped the White House would adhere to “the same hands-off policy” and let the bipartisan group of House and Senate lawmakers come to their conclusion ahead of the Feb. 15 deadline to keep the government fully funded.

Mr. Trump has repeatedly scorned the talks as a “waste of time” if a final agreement produced by the group, known as a conference committee, does not satisfy his $5.7 billion demand for a wall at the southwestern border. But Ms. Pelosi offered her unqualified support.

“If left to their own devices, if they have a bipartisan agreement, I will support it,” Ms. Pelosi told reporters on Wednesday, adding that she had offered the same assurance to Senator Richard C. Shelby, Republican of Alabama and a member of the committee.

“Left to their own devices, I think they could have an agreement” by Friday, she added.

That might be optimistic. Leaving a classified briefing with committee members and Customs and Border Protection agents, Representative Kay Granger of Texas, the ranking Republican on the House Appropriations Committee, offered a slightly more pessimistic prediction.

“No,” Ms. Granger said when asked if there was a chance to reach an agreement by Friday. But a deal by next week, she said, was “absolutely” possible.

Mr. Shelby told reporters after the meeting that he hoped a final piece of legislation could be produced by Monday and voted on later next week. Staff members, he said, were again expected to work through the weekend.

“Time’s fleeting, and time’s ticking,” said Mr. Shelby, the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

The classified briefing with career officials, organized by Mr. Shelby, was supposed to detail the immediate needs of law enforcement at the southwestern border. But lawmakers emerged without a consensus on physical barriers, only with renewed insistence that a final deal needs to include money for some kinds of physical structures as well as technology and manpower.

Those on the trip “came back and said, ‘If we’re going to do it right, it has to be some kind of physical barrier,’” she said, singling out the examples of bollard fencing she saw.

The group visited McAllen, Tex., along with Representative Henry Cuellar, a Democrat and fellow committee member whose district includes the city. They also toured the border in El Paso and San Diego.

“The priority is a physical barrier, a change in the system and enough people that our professional security can do their jobs,” Ms. Granger said.

Spokesman.com confirmed the report:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Wednesday that she would be willing to support any compromise border-security legislation that emerges from a bipartisan committee and that she has urged the White House to adopt the same “hands-off” posture.

Her comments come as congressional negotiators are seeking a deal that has to be approved by Feb. 15 – and satisfy President Donald Trump’s demand for border-wall funding – to avert another partial government shutdown.

Pelosi told reporters that she believes the House and Senate negotiators could reach a deal by the end of this week if “left to their own devices.”

Pelosi said she relayed to Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard Shelby, R-Ala., one of the lead negotiators, that “whatever you all come to an agreement on, bipartisan agreement, I will support it.”

“I hope that the administration would have the same attitude and respect for the appropriations process,” Pelosi said. “And I know they can find agreement.”

She added that she had relayed her hope to Vice President Mike Pence “that the White House will have the same hands-off policy as I have vis-a-vis the appropriators.”

Trump, meanwhile, announced plans to hold a campaign rally in the border city of El Paso, Texas, on Monday, four days ahead of the deadline for passing a bill to avert a shutdown.

If a deal is not reached by then, the rally would provide the president an opportunity to make a public case before a friendly audience for his long-promised wall – a demand that led to the 35-day shutdown that ended Jan. 25.

A deal struck between Trump and congressional leaders is keeping the government open until Feb. 15, while congressional negotiators try to reach a compromise that Trump will sign.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., told reporters Wednesday that it’s not certain Trump would sign legislation crafted by the conference committee.

“Do I have confidence in that? No I don’t,” Hoyer said.

Rep. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., the chair of the conference committee, told reporters she is hopeful that an agreement can be reached by Friday to give both the House and Senate time to approve it.

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“We’re meeting, we’re trying to resolve as many issues as possible,” she said. “We’re cautiously optimistic that we can conclude the process by Friday, but there are many questions that are being discussed and debated, and we look forward to completing our work.”

Lowey declined to say whether any formal offers had been made by Democrats that include some of the $5.7 billion in border-wall funding that Trump is seeking. Their initial offer included no new money.

Asked if Trump’s State of the Union speech on Tuesday night did anything to move the needle, Lowey said: “No comment.”

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