Trump: Ryan assured me there would be funding for wall

President Trump said in an interview published Wednesday that former Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) had assured him that last year’s Republican-controlled Congress would approve funding for a wall along the southern border. 

Trump told The Daily Caller that Ryan convinced Trump to sign an omnibus spending bill last year by pledging to “get you the wall” while Republicans had control of both the House and the Senate.

{mosads}“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,’ ” Trump said.

“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,” Trump added.

The president said he was “very disappointed in Ryan,” who Trump said went “lame duck” after he announced he would retire from Congress in January. 

“And once he went lame duck it was just really an exercise in waving to people and the power was gone so I was very disappointed. I was very disappointed in Paul because the wall was so desperately needed,” Trump told the Caller.

Trump was ultimately unable to secure funding from Congress for his proposed wall along the southern border despite Republicans controlling both chambers of Congress.

The House in December passed a spending bill that included $5.7 billion for the wall, but that bill was not cleared in the Senate. 

Trump’s demand for wall funding sparked a government shutdown that began Dec. 22 and lasted more than a month. The president last week signed a bill to reopen the government for three weeks without wall funding, but he has continued to demand that lawmakers work to approve funding for a wall in a long-term package.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers tasked with reaching an agreement for border security met for the first time on Wednesday. Trump said they would be “wasting their time” if they weren’t discussing a wall.