Even as a top senior presidential adviser dismissed Donald Trump’s offer to pay to resume tours at the White House, President Barack Obama said he would try to reopen the doors in time for spring-break school groups.
White House senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer ruled out the billionaire businessman’s offer to pay for the tours that were closed down due to the recent sequester’s across-the-board spending cuts.
“The Donald Trump option is not an option— what we have to do is deal with the sequester,” Pfeiffer said on CNN.
But Obama expressed concern about groups of school children headed for the nation’s capital during the upcoming spring break.
In an interview with ABC News broadcast on Wednesday, the president said he was talking with Secret Service officials about restoring some visits.
“What I’m asking them, for example, are there ways for us to accommodate school groups that may have traveled here,” Obama said.
Trump made his offer on Fox News on Monday, taking up a suggestion from former House Speaker Newt Gingrich to pay for the cost of resuming the popular tourist attraction.
“If you look at what’s going on, I guess they’re trying to make a political point. It’s just really ridiculous,” Trump said. “It does make us look awfully bad and awfully pathetic.”
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