Forget impeachment — Democratic leaders have their eyes on infrastructure.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer will meet with President Donald Trump next Tuesday morning to discuss a potential plan to revamp U.S. infrastructure, CNBC confirmed. Pelosi, who first announced the meeting Tuesday afternoon, said she is "very optimistic" about finding a bipartisan path to passing both an infrastructure proposal and a measure to cut drug prices.
Both Democrats and the White House say they want to overhaul U.S. roads, bridges and airports. But the parties still need to agree on how to finance the projects and how many environmental provisions to include in a plan.
"We'll be meeting with the president next week when we come back to talk about what the prospect is for the size, in terms of resources and scope of what that might be," Pelosi said during the Time 100 Summit on Tuesday.
As House Democrats issue subpoenas to get information from the president's associates as part of ongoing investigations, Trump argued Wednesday that they should instead focus on legislation.Â
"Get back to infrastructure, get back to cutting taxes, get back to lowering drug prices. ... Really, that's what we should be doing," the president told reporters as he left the White House to travel to Georgia.Â
In late March, Trump told Fox Business Network that infrastructure is "the easiest thing" he could accomplish with Democrats. The president and Pelosi briefly discussed the issue during a St. Patrick's Day luncheon last month.
When she spoke Tuesday, Pelosi aimed to keep the focus on issues as she tries to tamp down talk of impeaching Trump ahead of the 2020 election. Calls to start impeachment proceedings have increased within the Democratic caucus following the release of special counsel Robert Mueller's report on his Russia investigation.
Mueller did not weigh in on whether the president obstructed justice by trying to influence the probe, but effectively left it to Congress to decide. Attorney General William Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein declined to charge Trump with obstruction of justice.
Pelosi again called the prospect of impeachment "divisive." She repeatedly said Democrats should use House committees to pursue "facts" about the president's conduct.
But she did not unequivocally rule out impeachment in the future.
"It may be a place that the facts take us. We shouldn't impeach for a political reason and we shouldn't not impeach for a political reason," Pelosi said.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.