Speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi told NBC's "Today" show in an interview set to air Thursday that she will not provide President Donald Trump with the border wall funding he has demanded and shut down the government over.

Asked by NBC's Savannah Guthrie if she was willing to give up any money specifically for the border wall, Pelosi said "no."

"We can go through the back and forth," Pelosi said in a clip that aired on MSNBC on Wednesday. "No. How many more times can we say no? Nothing for the wall."

Pelosi's comments come one day before she is set to take over the House speakership on Thursday. The government shutdown has now stretched into its second week, with hundreds of thousands of government workers furloughed from their jobs.

Read more on this story on NBCNews.com, and watch the interview on NBC Nightly News tonight and "Today" on Thursday morning.</s>President Donald Trump gave a preview of his border wall plans on Monday, saying that the choice of materials is being shaped by input from the Border Patrol.

During his 2016 campaign for the White House, Trump often spoke of his vision of a 30-foot concrete barrier that would reduce illegal immigration across America’s Southern Border.

On Monday, he said that his initial vision has evolved thanks to the help of those who guard the border. He also responded to media coverage of a Los Angeles Times interview with outgoing Chief of Staff John Kelly that was published Sunday where Kelly downplayed the idea of a solid concrete “wall” on the border of the United States and Mexico.

“An all concrete Wall was NEVER ABANDONED, as has been reported by the media. Some areas will be all concrete but the experts at Border Patrol prefer a Wall that is see through (thereby making it possible to see what is happening on both sides). Makes sense to me!” Trump tweeted.

The composition of the border wall became a media tempest after Kelly said that the massive, concrete, sea-to-sea barrier often envisioned by Trump supporters is not in the cards.

“To be honest, it’s not a wall,” Kelly told the Los Angeles Times.

Kelly, who served as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security at the start of the Trump administration, said Border Patrol agents told him a variety of approaches were needed across the vastly different terrain of the border.

“They said, ‘Well we need a physical barrier in certain places, we need technology across the board, and we need more people,’” he said.

“The president still says ‘wall’ — oftentimes, frankly, he’ll say ‘barrier’ or ‘fencing,’ now he’s tended toward steel slats. But we left a solid concrete wall early on in the administration, when we asked people what they needed and where they needed it.”

Although Kelly and Trump might use different words, in the interview, Kelly said that the purpose remained the same.

“We do have an immigration problem,” he said.

White House counselor Kellyanne Conway told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday that while “wall” remains the administration’s word of choice to describe the final product, there has been no secret that Trump’s expectation is more nuanced than massive slabs of concrete end to end.

The interview is here. The “wall” discussion starts about the 5-minute mark.

“I think many people who don’t want to fess up to border security and get Congress to do its job and close the loopholes insist it’s a wall, wall, wall,” she told CNN. “The president has said, he said last week, and he tweeted out pictures of steel slats. Things are already happening in California in terms of that.”

Conway said the goal is to get the job done.

“It really depends on what Customs and Border Patrol says they need. And they have said they need barriers. The president says a wall — barriers, the president says they need steel slats. They need technological enhancements,” she said.

We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.</s>Likely next House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Nancy PelosiUS conservative leader: China is more 'fragile than we realize' Ten notable Democrats who do not favor impeachment Majority fear mass shooting in their community: poll MORE (D-Calif.) reaffirmed that Democrats will not give in to President Trump Donald John TrumpTrump awards Medal of Valor, civilian honors to responders in Dayton and El Paso shootings Texas Democrats unveil 'path to victory' plan for 2020 The Hill's 12:30 Report: Congress returns with gun violence, funding atop agenda MORE’s demand for $5 billion for a border wall as part of any legislation to end a partial government shutdown.

“Nothing for the wall,” she said in an interview for NBC’s “Today” show set to air Thursday morning.

"Are you willing to come up and give him some of this money for the wall?" -@SavannahGuthrie

"No." -@NancyPelosi

"Because apparently that's the sticking point." -Guthrie

"No, no. Nothing for the wall." -Pelosi



Full exclusive interview tomorrow on TODAY pic.twitter.com/6zHKXJjPbb — TODAY (@TODAYshow) January 2, 2019

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Democrats, who will officially take the House majority on Thursday, have repeatedly said they will not include any funding for a border wall as part of a spending bill to end the shutdown, which entered its 12th day Wednesday.

Pelosi and other congressional leaders huddled with the president at the White House Wednesday for an ultimately fruitless negotiation to try to bridge the differences between the two ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.

However, Trump has shown no signs of letting up on his desire to attain funding for his signature campaign promise, saying at a Cabinet meeting Wednesday, “The United States needs a physical barrier. It needs a wall,” adding that parts of the government will remain closed for “as long as it takes.”

Democrats plan to vote on legislation Thursday that would end the shutdown, but without border wall money.

“We are asking the president to open up the government,” Pelosi said outside the White House following Wednesday’s meeting. “We are giving him a Republican path to do that. Why would he not do it?”

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders has already said the bill is a “non-starter,” and Trump invited congressional leaders to return to the White House on Friday to continue negotiations.

The White House last week proposed roughly $2.1 billion in wall funding plus hundreds of millions more for general border security, but Democratic leaders did not respond to the proposal. However, Trump said Wednesday he would reject that amount regardless of what Democrats decide, sticking to his demand for $5 billion.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell Addison (Mitch) Mitchell McConnellMajority fear mass shooting in their community: poll Top Democrats press Trump on background checks legislation The Hill's Morning Report - Congress returns: What to expect MORE (R-Ky.) has said he would not bring any spending bill to the floor that Trump himself has not publicly endorsed. Congressional Republicans have become increasingly wary of voting on any stopgap legislation after Trump signaled last month he would sign a Senate-passed bill that did not include border funding, only to say he would not sign it after facing backlash from conservative allies in the media and on Capitol Hill.

The shutdown has resulted in the furloughs of hundreds of thousands of federal employees and the shuttering of several government agencies, including the Departments of Homeland Security, Agriculture, Treasury, Commerce, Justice, Interior and State, among others.</s>As the partial government shutdown continues into its second week, President Trump has invited a bipartisan group of top lawmakers to the White House for talks, two congressional sources say.

The meeting, described as a "briefing" on "border security," would take place Wednesday, a day before Democrats are set to take over the House, the sources tell NPR's Scott Detrow.

The White House has not responded to questions about the invitation, which was first reported by Politico. But President Trump hinted at the talks in a New Year's Day tweet.

"Border Security and the Wall 'thing' and Shutdown is not where Nancy Pelosi wanted to start her tenure as Speaker! Let's make a deal?" Trump asked.

Replying to Trump's tweet, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, who is set to take over as speaker, wrote that the president "has given Democrats a great opportunity to show how we will govern responsibly & quickly pass our plan to end the irresponsible #TrumpShutdown."

Trump has insisted on $5.7 billion for a southern border wall, but Democratic congressional leaders have stood firm against the funding.

The House is expected to vote on a funding bill to end the partial government shutdown on Thursday. That's the first day of the new Congress, when Democrats will take control of the chamber and are expected to elect Pelosi as speaker.

According to Pelosi, the legislation will include the full-year appropriations for six of the seven outstanding funding bills. And it would provide stopgap funding until Feb. 8 for the Department of Homeland Security, which is where the fight over border wall funding is contained.

"It is important to note that these bills contain no new wall funding," Pelosi said in a letter Tuesday to Democratic House members.

About 800,000 federal employees are furloughed during the partial shutdown or are working without pay. On Friday, Trump issued an executive order freezing the salary rates for civilian federal workers.</s>Likely incoming Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said Democrats will not give President Donald Trump funding for his desired wall along the US southern border.

"No, no," Pelosi says in a tweeted clip from an interview with the "TODAY" show. "Nothing for the wall."

Pelosi was responding to a question from anchor Savannah Guthrie, who asked if Democrats were "willing to come up and give him some of this money for the wall?"

"Because apparently that's the sticking point," Guthrie says.

Pelosi said Democrats would give money for "border security" but not a wall.

The interview will air on Thursday — which is both day 13 of a partial government shutdown that has centered around funding for the wall, and the day that the Democrats take control of the House of Representatives.

The partial government shutdown began after no deal was reached by the end of December 21. President Trump said he would not sign a stopgap continuing resolution to fund part of the government until February 8.

The Senate passed the stopgap bill with the understanding that the president would sign it, however, after criticism from those on his base, Trump changed course. House Republicans — before giving up their majority — passed a spending bill with $5.7 billion for the wall. That bill, however, does not have the 60 votes in the Senate needed to pass.

Read more: Trump rants about the government shutdown, stock market 'glitches,' Tom Cruise, and more during wild Cabinet meeting

As Business Insider's Bob Bryan reported, around 75% of the government was funded through a series of bills passed prior to the wall-related impasse (five of 12 were passed). However, nine federal agencies were not funded, impacting roughly 800,000 federal workers; 420,000 must work without pay, while the rest are furloughed until the shutdown is over. The shutdown, which was the third of 2018 (and spilled over into 2019), is affecting national monuments in Washington, DC and national parks around the country.

On Wednesday, Trump met with Democratic and Republican congressional leaders, but no deal was made.

On January 3, the Democrats take control of the House, and on Monday they unveiled bills that would open the government but not provide funding for the border wall. Trump asked leaders to meet again on Friday.</s>Speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi told NBC's "Today" show in an interview set to air Thursday that she will not provide President Donald Trump with the border wall funding he has demanded and shut down the government over.

Asked by NBC's Savannah Guthrie if she was willing to give up any money specifically for the border wall, Pelosi said "no."

"We can go through the back and forth," Pelosi said in a clip that aired on MSNBC on Wednesday. "No. How many more times can we say no? Nothing for the wall."

Pelosi added that the shutdown has "nothing to do with" Democrats, saying Trump is holding the federal government hostage so that he can fulfill his campaign promise to build a border wall — one she noted he pledged Mexico would fund.

"That is so ridiculous: A. Mexico's not paying for it...and B. We have better use of funds to protect our border," Pelosi said. "The president knows that."

Her comments come one day before she is set to take over the House speakership on Thursday. The government shutdown has now stretched into its second week, with hundreds of thousands of government workers furloughed from their jobs.

Earlier Wednesday, Trump said at a Cabinet meeting that the shutdown will last "as long as it takes," adding that it "could be a long time, or it could be quickly."

Congress was unable to agree on a spending measure to keep the government open last month once the president insisted he would not sign such legislation unless it included $5 billion in funding for a massive wall along the U.S. border with Mexico.

House Democrats will quickly move to pass short-term spending legislation upon taking control on Thursday, although it is unlikely that measure would pass the Senate and be signed by Trump.

Read more on this story on NBCNews.com, and watch the interview on NBC Nightly News tonight and "Today" on Thursday morning.</s>As the partial government shutdown continues into its second week, President Trump has invited a bipartisan group of top lawmakers to the White House for talks, two congressional sources say.

The meeting, described as a "briefing" on "border security," would take place Wednesday, a day before Democrats are set to take over the House, the sources tell NPR's Scott Detrow.

The White House has not responded to questions about the invitation, which was first reported by Politico. But President Trump hinted at the talks in a New Year's Day tweet.

"Border Security and the Wall 'thing' and Shutdown is not where Nancy Pelosi wanted to start her tenure as Speaker! Let's make a deal?" Trump asked.

Replying to Trump's tweet, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, who is set to take over as speaker, wrote that the president "has given Democrats a great opportunity to show how we will govern responsibly & quickly pass our plan to end the irresponsible #TrumpShutdown."

Trump has insisted on $5.7 billion for a southern border wall, but Democratic congressional leaders have stood firm against the funding.

The House is expected to vote on a funding bill to end the partial government shutdown on Thursday. That's the first day of the new Congress, when Democrats will take control of the chamber and are expected to elect Pelosi as speaker.

According to Pelosi, the legislation will include the full-year appropriations for six of the seven outstanding funding bills. And it would provide stopgap funding until Feb. 8 for the Department of Homeland Security, which is where the fight over border wall funding is contained.

"It is important to note that these bills contain no new wall funding," Pelosi said in a letter Tuesday to Democratic House members.

About 800,000 federal employees are furloughed during the partial shutdown or are working without pay. On Friday, Trump issued an executive order freezing the salary rates for civilian federal workers.</s>Speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi told NBC’s “Today” that Democrats will wait and see what comes out of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report before deciding whether to impeach President Donald Trump.

Pelosi said in the exclusive interview, which aired Thursday, that impeachment "would be” very divisive, adding: “We shouldn't be impeaching for a political reason, and we shouldn't avoid impeachment for a political reason.”

Soon to regain control of the House, Democrats will be able to pass articles of impeachment against the president, where they would then advance to the Senate for a trial. But with the Senate having a slight GOP majority, it’s unlikely that Trump would face a conviction and removal from office.

Mueller is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election and whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russian officials. Already, Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, former national security adviser Michael Flynn, and former attorney Michael Cohen have entered guilty pleas to charges stemming from the investigation.

Asked by “Today’s” Savannah Guthrie about the Department of Justice’s guidance that a sitting president cannot be indicted, Pelosi said that was not settled law. She added that “everything indicates” a “president can be indicted after he is no longer president of the United States.”

On negotiating with Trump, Pelosi said “you have to ... stipulate to some fact.”

“It’s hard to do that with the president because he resists science, evidence, data, truth,” Pelosi said. “It’s hard to pin the president down on the facts.”

But she believes Democrats and the president can work together in a positive way “now that the president is more acclimated to the fact that he's dealing with a Democratic majority in the Congress of the United States.”</s>President Donald Trump gave a preview of his border wall plans on Monday, saying that the choice of materials is being shaped by input from the Border Patrol.

During his 2016 campaign for the White House, Trump often spoke of his vision of a 30-foot concrete barrier that would reduce illegal immigration across America’s Southern Border.

On Monday, he said that his initial vision has evolved thanks to the help of those who guard the border. He also responded to media coverage of a Los Angeles Times interview with outgoing Chief of Staff John Kelly that was published Sunday where Kelly downplayed the idea of a solid concrete “wall” on the border of the United States and Mexico.

“An all concrete Wall was NEVER ABANDONED, as has been reported by the media. Some areas will be all concrete but the experts at Border Patrol prefer a Wall that is see through (thereby making it possible to see what is happening on both sides). Makes sense to me!” Trump tweeted.

The composition of the border wall became a media tempest after Kelly said that the massive, concrete, sea-to-sea barrier often envisioned by Trump supporters is not in the cards.

“To be honest, it’s not a wall,” Kelly told the Los Angeles Times.

Kelly, who served as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security at the start of the Trump administration, said Border Patrol agents told him a variety of approaches were needed across the vastly different terrain of the border.

“They said, ‘Well we need a physical barrier in certain places, we need technology across the board, and we need more people,’” he said.

“The president still says ‘wall’ — oftentimes, frankly, he’ll say ‘barrier’ or ‘fencing,’ now he’s tended toward steel slats. But we left a solid concrete wall early on in the administration, when we asked people what they needed and where they needed it.”

Although Kelly and Trump might use different words, in the interview, Kelly said that the purpose remained the same.

“We do have an immigration problem,” he said.

White House counselor Kellyanne Conway told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday that while “wall” remains the administration’s word of choice to describe the final product, there has been no secret that Trump’s expectation is more nuanced than massive slabs of concrete end to end.

The interview is here. The “wall” discussion starts about the 5-minute mark.

“I think many people who don’t want to fess up to border security and get Congress to do its job and close the loopholes insist it’s a wall, wall, wall,” she told CNN. “The president has said, he said last week, and he tweeted out pictures of steel slats. Things are already happening in California in terms of that.”

Conway said the goal is to get the job done.

“It really depends on what Customs and Border Patrol says they need. And they have said they need barriers. The president says a wall — barriers, the president says they need steel slats. They need technological enhancements,” she said.

We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.</s>By ZEKE MILLER and LISA MASCARO, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump invited congressional leaders from each chamber to a White House briefing on border security Wednesday as the partial government shutdown wore on over funding for a border wall, with Trump tweeting: “Let’s make a deal?”

The briefing would happen the day before the Democrats take control of the House, but the exact agenda wasn’t immediately clear, according to a person with knowledge of the briefing who was not authorized to speak publicly about the issue and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

The invite comes after House Democrats released their plan to re-open the government without approving money for a border wall — unveiling two bills to fund shuttered government agencies and put hundreds of thousands of federal workers back on the job. They planned to pass them as soon as the new Congress convened Thursday.

Trump spent the weekend saying that Democrats should return to Washington to negotiate, firing off Twitter taunts. He then revised his aides’ comments to state that he really still wants to build a border wall. And last week, he blamed House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi for the impasse that led to the shutdown.

On Tuesday morning, after tweeting a New Year’s message to “EVERYONE INCLUDING THE HATERS AND THE FAKE NEWS MEDIA,” Trump tweeted, “The Democrats, much as I suspected, have allocated no money for a new Wall. So imaginative! The problem is, without a Wall there can be no real Border Security.”

But he seemed to shift tactics later in the day, appealing to Pelosi, who is expected to take over as speaker when the new Congress convenes.

“Border Security and the Wall ‘thing’ and Shutdown is not where Nancy Pelosi wanted to start her tenure as Speaker! Let’s make a deal?” he tweeted.

Whether the Republican-led Senate, under Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, would consider the Democratic bills — or if Trump would sign either into law — was unclear. McConnell spokesman Donald Stewart said Senate Republicans would not take action without Trump’s backing.

“It’s simple: The Senate is not going to send something to the president that he won’t sign,” Stewart said.

Even if only symbolic, the passage of the bills in the House would put fresh pressure on the president. At the same time, administration officials said Trump was in no rush for a resolution to the impasse.

Trump believes he has public opinion on his side and, at very least, his base of supporters behind him, the officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

White House officials, including the departing chief of staff, had indicated that Trump’s signature campaign pledge to build the wall would not be fulfilled as advertised. Chief of staff John Kelly told the Los Angeles Times in an interview published Sunday that Trump abandoned the notion of “a solid concrete wall early on in the administration.”

The Democratic package to end the shutdown would include one bill to temporarily fund the Department of Homeland Security at current levels — with $1.3 billion for border security, far less than the $5 billion Trump has said he wants for the wall — through Feb. 8 as talks continued.

It would also include another measure to fund the departments of Agriculture, Interior, Housing and Urban Development and others closed by the partial shutdown. It would provide money through the remainder of the fiscal year, to Sept. 30.

Democrats under Pelosi were all but certain to swiftly approve the package in two separate votes Thursday. They would take place after the election of a new House speaker, a contest Pelosi was expected to win as leader of the new House majority.

The White House did not respond to multiple requests for comment on the House proposal. Republican senators left for the holidays refusing to vote on any bills until all sides, including Trump, were in agreement. The lawmakers were frustrated that Trump had dismissed their earlier legislation.

The president has not said he would veto the Democratic legislation, if the bills were to land on his desk. But a prolonged crisis could hobble House Democrats’ ability to proceed with their agenda, which included investigations of the president and oversight of his administration, including Russian interference in the election.

At least one Republican, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, encouraged Trump to use the budget impasse as an opportunity to address issues beyond the border wall. But a previous attempt to reach a compromise that addressed the status of “Dreamers” — young immigrants brought to the U.S. as children — broke down last year as a result of escalating White House demands. Graham said Trump was “open minded” about his proposal

The partial government shutdown began Dec. 22 after Trump bowed to conservative demands that he fight to make good on his vow and secure funding for the wall before Republicans lose control of the House on Wednesday. Democrats have remained committed to blocking any funding for the wall.

With neither side engaging in substantive negotiation, the effect of the partial shutdown was set to spread and to extend into the new year.

___

 Associated Press writer Kevin Freking contributed to this report.
President Trump and congressional leaders fail to resolve their political differences over federal funding for the border barrier, with Pelosi stating that the president will receive "nothing for the wall" from her party.