Pelosi Trump handshake
Former President Donald Trump turns away as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi reaches out to shake his hand before the State of the Union address in the House chamber on February 4, 2020 in Washington, DC.
Leah Millis/Pool/Getty Images
  • Nancy Pelosi criticized Republicans on Thursday for voting against a bill to avert a government shutdown.
  • "The former president was famous for not paying his bills," said Pelosi. "And they want to do that again."
  • Trump has a history of not paying bills, both in his personal life and during his campaigns.
  • See more stories on Insider's business page.

At her weekly press conference on Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi took a shot at former President Donald Trump as she criticized Republicans for failing to support a measure to avert a looming government shutdown.

"You know, the former president was famous for not paying his bills," said Pelosi. "And they want to do that again, but we cannot let them do that and jeopardize our economy.

"Why should it be that we as Democrats always come to the rescue when it's a Republican president?" Pelosi asked during the press conference. "And we're not coming to the rescue of the president, we're coming to the rescue of our economy."

The House passed a bill on Tuesday to keep the government open and suspend the country's debt limit until December, which also included nearly $35 billion in disaster aid to and relocation funds Afghan refugees who assisted US forces during the recently-concluded war in Afghanistan. That bill passed on a party-line vote but is likely to be blocked in the Senate.

Pelosi's analogy likened Republican attitudes to funding the government to a well-publicized record of the former President and one-time real estate developer failing to pay contractors and vendors for their services.

And that behavior often carried over to Trump's campaign, including millions of dollars in unpaid bills from local police departments in connection with political rallies. In April of this year, Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller sent a $211,000 bill to Mar-a-Lago after a 2019 Trump campaign event forced the city to shut down the downtown area and close city hall, resulting in "tremendous" costs to the city.

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