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Sen. Carper says Trump is 'not serious' about infrastructure funding

Delaware Public Media

Delaware’s senior senator says the president is not serious about funding the nation’s crumbling infrastructure.

Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE) is the top Democrat on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

He was in a meeting three weeks ago with President Trump and Democratic leaders, and Carper says all parties agreed then to form a plan that would put $2 trillion towards repairing roads, highways and bridges as well as other infrastructure upgrades over the next ten years.

But Trump abruptly left a follow up meeting earlier this week saying negotiations would not continue until the House stops investigating him. In a Rose Garden press conference, the president lashed out against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for accusing him of being involved in a cover up.

Carper thinks infrastructure talks should resume regardless.

“If you go back in time, there have been other administrations where there were investigations—sometimes for the entire time that people were in office—and they still got big things done,” said Carper.

Carper says he thinks the President may be using the investigation as an excuse to halt infrastructure plans, because he could not come up with a way to fund to the project.

“It’s a hard thing to come up with $2 trillion, and to get the Republicans to agree to a package, and the administration to agree to something that makes sense and gets the job done,” said Carper. “Part of me says they just couldn’t come up with a package and rather than say, ‘we couldn’t come up with a proposal,’ they came up with, sort of, an excuse.”

Carper says he is now working with Sen. John Barrosso (R-WY) on a five-year infrastructure plan. He says he hopes to vote in committee on the bill in July and try to get it passed this fall.

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