Trump Says Paul Ryan Reneged on Deal to Fund Wall for Omnibus Signature
Vince Coglianese and Saagar Enjeti, Daily Caller, January 30, 2019
{snip}
TRANSCRIPT:
THE DAILY CALLER: {snip} How big of a roadblock to wall funding was Paul Ryan, now that he’s gone?
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well, I was going to veto the omnibus bill and Paul told me in the strongest of language, ‘Please don’t do that, we’ll get you the wall.’ And I said, ‘I hope you mean that, because I don’t like this bill,’ although I love the bill for what it did for the military. And therefore, if it weren’t for the military, I would have vetoed it.
Just so you understand, our military needed funding desperately. Totally depleted. And this bill was great for the military. Had I vetoed it, you would never have gotten the numbers back that I got. 700 and 716 billion dollars over the past two years. {snip}
So that was a negative, but a big factor as to why that was the reason I signed it. But another very big factor was the fact that Paul told me in the strongest of terms that, ‘please sign this and if you sign this we will get you that wall.’ Which is desperately needed by our country. Humanitarian crisis, trafficking, drugs, you know, everything — people, criminals, gangs, so, you know, we need the wall.
And then he went lame duck. And once he went lame duck {snip} the power was gone so I was very disappointed. I was very disappointed in Paul because the wall was so desperately needed. And I’ll get the wall.
THE DAILY CALLER: Did he lie to you? Did he play you?
TRUMP: {snip} I don’t call that lying. But when he went lame duck, meaning, he said he’s not running again — and it was very unusual because usually they’ll do that sometime after an election and he didn’t want to do that because it’s somewhat misrepresenting and I understand that too. {snip}
So Paul said, please sign the omnibus bill. Now, in all fairness to Paul, I may have signed it anyway because it was so much more money than anyone ever thought possible for the military and equal to the wall, and maybe even greater than the wall was my promise to refurbish the military.
