Scott laments failed infrastructure meeting while schools are in 'desperate' need

House Education Chairman Bobby Scott (D-Va.) called it “disappointing” that President Donald Trump abandoned a meeting with congressional leaders that Scott said could have brought Congress closer to an infrastructure package including school improvements.

“America’s public schools are in desperate need of repair,” Scott said in a statement to POLITICO. “We remain committed to delivering on the promise of jobs and safer school buildings for communities across the country.”

The president walked out of a White House meeting with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other congressional leaders on Wednesday after learning Pelosi had accused him earlier in the day of being “engaged in a cover-up.” Trump, after calling off the meeting, told reporters in a Rose Garden news conference “I don’t do cover-ups” and said he told Democrats during the brief meeting to end their “phony investigations” of him.

It’s unclear whether school infrastructure would have been a priority discussion item during the meeting. Pelosi, on May 14, said during a meeting with the Transportation Construction Coalition that funding for housing and schools would not be included in the $2 trillion infrastructure plan they were to discuss with Trump because they “come into a different funding mechanism.”

Later, Pelosi’s deputy chief of staff, Drew Hammill, reached out to POLITICO to state that Pelosi does, in fact, want to see schools and housing in the $2 trillion plan. “The infrastructure needs in the areas of schools and housing are enormous,” Hammill said. “The Speaker believes that these priorities must be central to the infrastructure package being discussed with the President.”

Benjamin Wermund and Tanya Snyder contributed to this report.

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