Pelosi at first news conference since shutdown’s end: ‘Winning is good’

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Thursday quipped that “winning is good” as she entered her first news conference since the end of the 35-day partial government shutdown.

“Full house. Winning is good,” Pelosi remarked as she entered the room full of reporters.

.@SpeakerPelosi, upon walking in to a packed weekly press conference: “Wow, full house. Winning is good!”

— Kasie Hunt (@kasie) January 31, 2019

Pelosi’s remarks came just under a week since President Trump signed a three-week funding bill, formally ending the shutdown without securing money for his long-desired southern border wall. 

The move followed a record-long shutdown, which began Dec. 22 after Trump refused to sign a bill to fund the government that didn’t include wall funding. 

{mosads}Pelosi throughout the shutdown vowed not to approve any funding for a wall. The end to the shutdown was widely seen as a victory for the House Speaker, as the bill Trump signed to reopen the government didn’t include any such wall funding.

Trump has since continued to pressure lawmakers to approve wall funding, but Pelosi has maintained that Democrats will not do so.

“There’s not going to be any wall money in the legislation,” she added at Thursday’s news conference.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers tasked with reaching an agreement on border security met for the first time on Wednesday. 

Democratic leaders emerged from the meeting taking a hard line on Trump’s proposed border wall, but suggested they were open to a deal.