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Trump Says He’s ‘Being Played’ by Democrats on Infrastructure

Trump Says He's ‘Being Played’ by Democrats on Infrastructure

(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump said he wants Congress to pass major infrastructure legislation but that he’s “being played by the Democrats” who are trying to goad him into raising taxes.

“I think what they want me to do is say, ‘Well, what we’ll do is raise taxes and we’ll do this and this and this,’’’ Trump said in an interview that aired Sunday night on Fox News. “And then they’ll have a news conference, ‘See? Trump wants to raise taxes.’ So it’s little bit of a game.’’

Trump Says He’s ‘Being Played’ by Democrats on Infrastructure

Trump is scheduled to meet Wednesday with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to discuss how to pay for a proposed $2 trillion infrastructure initiative, which the parties discussed during an April 30 meeting at the White House.

But Democratic leaders want Trump to present the options he could support for raising revenue as the starting point for negotiating a plan. They say that without the president’s leadership, other Republicans won’t go along and it will founder.

Public-works advocates say increasing federal fuel taxes for the first time since 1993 is the only realistic way to raise significant revenue for an infrastructure plan in the short term. But the idea has little support among officials wary of the politically risky move heading into the 2020 election.

In the Fox interview, Trump said acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney “had no right” to say he wasn’t optimistic about getting a public-works plan done this year -- though Trump said Mulvaney denied making the comment and “didn’t mean it.”

The president also said he wants any infrastructure deal to be “in the right terms.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Mark Niquette in Columbus at mniquette@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Sara Forden at sforden@bloomberg.net, Justin Blum

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