House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., says "we have a problem" if President Donald Trump "is against governance" — adding she sometimes thinks she has got more respect for the presidency than Trump does.
In an interview aired Sunday on "CBS Sunday Morning," Pelosi, whose selection — twice — as Speaker of the House of Representatives makes her the most powerful woman in U.S. politics, said "sadly, I was hoping that we would have an American woman president just two years ago," referring to the failed candidacy of Hillary Clinton.
"[T]he Speaker has awesome power," she said. "But if the president of the United States is against governance and doesn't care whether people's needs are met or that public employees are paid or that we can have a legitimate discussion, then we have a problem, and we have to take it to the American people,” she said.
Trump is demanding $5.6 billion to fulfill his campaign promise of a wall along the Mexico border. Pelosi has vowed to block any funding to build it.
And during a meeting with lawmakers last week meant to negotiate the shutdown triggered by the stalemate, Trump threatened to keep the government partially closed for months or even years.
"The impression you get from the president [is] that he would like to not only close government, build a wall, but also abolish Congress so the only voice that mattered was his own," Pelosi said.
"Sometimes I think I respect the office he holds more than he does," she added.
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