Pelosi to Mayors: 'Let's Hear It for Border Security'

WASHINGTON — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told the U.S. Conference of Mayors winter meeting today that her party “must hold the line on this shutdown” because “there is serious and justified concern that this President would shut down the government any time he does not get his way legislatively.”

Pelosi addressed the mayors as the House took a tenth vote on a package to end the government shutdown, with 10 Republicans crossing party lines to vote for the measure and one Democrat — Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.) — voting against the bill due to included funds for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“Let’s hear it for border security,” Pelosi said of the initiatives included in the bill.

“People have to understand, there is a purpose to the governance. You know it better than anyone, the public role in meeting the needs of people, and that people’s needs are not being met, when these people are not being employed, working and getting paid for their work,” she said. “The American people elected a House majority that would — that’s an applause line; not for everybody, maybe — that will deliver results for the people, opening up new opportunities and improving their lives.”

“…We must build, build, build. Build our human infrastructure. Invest in our physical infrastructure. And build our democracy.”

Pelosi said that infrastructure repair and revitalization is “one subject that I have some common ground with the president… maybe 80 percent of the conversations I’ve had with him since his election have been about infrastructure.”

Pelosi said she also wanted to work with the mayors to “make America more safe by passing common sense legislation to end the epidemic of gun violence,” to “make America more American by protecting DREAMers and TPS recipients,” and to “strengthen our democracy by passing the Equality Act, that is an act to end discrimination against LGBT community, and so we are very excited about that.”

She added that “the sinfulness, the immorality of the disparity of income in our country — it is so stunning and remarkable.”

“We have to talk about our planet. I was going to say the denial of some about our planet but let’s be in a more positive vein,” Pelosi continued. “…It’s a moral issue. If you believe, as I do, that this planet is God’s creation — I join with our evangelical community in doing so, this is God’s creation and we have a moral responsibility to be good stewards of it, then we must be good stewards of it. And if you don’t share that view, but you do agree that we owe it to future generations to pass on the planet, in a responsible way, then again, it is a moral issue.”