Transcript of Speaker Pelosi’s Remarks at Weekly Press Conference
Washington, D.C. – Speaker Nancy Pelosi held her weekly press conference today in the Capitol Visitor Center. Below are the Speaker's remarks:
Speaker Pelosi. Good morning, everyone.
Sadly, this week, we began on a somber note, losing our revered colleague, Congressman Donald McEachin of Virginia. For two decades, he has been a – had been a distinguished leader in Richmond, serving in both the House of Delegates and the state Senate. And here in the House, he was a force for climate action and environmental justice, whether on the Energy and Commerce Committee or a Member of the Select Committee – Natural Resources also – Energy and Commerce, Natural Resources and the Select Committee on Climate.
He was a relentless advocate for environmental justice, for saving the planet, for Virginia families, for his district, for his state, for the country, for the planet, for the world. He will be deeply missed by all of his colleagues, and he leaves behind a legacy that will improve the lives of all children. It was just a shocking blow to us that he passed. I hope it's a comfort to his loving wife Colette, whom I have spoken to and extended the greetings of the – the sympathy and greetings of the Congress to her, thanking her for sharing her with – him with us, even in this later – he had been diagnosed for a while, but nonetheless always coming to work and doing his job. His children, Mac, Briana and Alexandra, and grandchild, Gael, I hope it's a comfort to them that all of us mourn his loss.
When I said to her, ‘Thank you for sharing him with us, even when he was physically challenged,' she said – and I said – I asked her for permission to say this – she said, ‘That's what really kept him going. To get up in the morning, to know he was going there to do the people's work, to put on a suit and tie, and go there and continue the fight For The People.' So we thank her for sharing him.
Okay. And this week, we have marked a week of transition as we, at the moment, House Democrats are passing the torch to a new generation of leaders. I'm so excited about the enthusiasm of so many people who wanted to participate. Over the years, we kept adding to the number of people who would be at the leadership table. When I first became Leader, it was eight, and now it's more like seventeen. I think they may have added one or two in the last day or so. More than double what was there, again, when I first became a Leader. And so that reflects the beautiful diversity of our Caucus, and I couldn't be more thrilled.
Again, as I mentioned, Hakeem Jeffries – they tell me he's Leader‑designate until January. Is that correct?
Well, Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Whip-designate Katherine Clark and Chairman‑designate Pete Aguilar. We're proud of all of them. They have leadership experience. And I wish them well.
Together, House Democratic leadership, it reflects, again, not only the diversity, but the vibrancy of our Caucus. Again, new leadership always bringing fresh ideas, entrepreneurial thinking, a different – their take on a vision and their path to achieving that vision will invigorate the Caucus. Again, I'm personally grateful for the opportunity I have had to serve in leadership 20 years as Leader or Speaker, just a while as Whip to begin with, and I consider it a great privilege. But I'm very, very happy to be seeing all that we – I wish that, as one who has served so long, my dream is that they do better. And I think everybody who has a position of responsibility always wants their successors to do better.
Again, as we prepare for the 118th Congress, House Democrats remain hard at work to protect and strengthen the financial security of America's working families. We still have work to do in these last few weeks. I know you'll want to know the schedule, but we're not quite there yet.
Yesterday, we passed something that was urgent and necessary to avert a catastrophic national rail shutdown. It was something that was necessary, and the President asked us to do it. He has been at the table as the most pro‑union President we have had, not only for the first iteration of it, but then the further improvement of it. And he made it clear that if we didn't take the action we did yesterday, 765,000 – over 750,000 jobs would be lost, including union jobs, $2 billion a day in economic activity would be erased. Families unable – having more of a struggle to buy groceries and life‑saving medication. Small businesses unable to get their product to markets, especially concerning to the ag community where perishable goods have a short fuse and need to be transmitted.
At the same time, we stand firmly in support of paid sick leave. It's outrageous that every developed country in the world has paid sick leave except the United States of America. And that's why, in addition to our bill adopting a Tentative Agreement, that was the heart of it, and then we voted to add seven days of paid sick leave for the workers. Again, doing so a matter of values For The People. It's another iteration I had in the BBB to put forth Family and Medical Leave legislation.
Just for some of you – well, maybe none of you were around then, but you know from history that when President Clinton became President, right away he signed the Family and Medical Leave legislation. We had been passing it, but we couldn't get a signature. And so it was a big triumph. People celebrate the anniversary of it. His library is largely dedicated to the opening ceremony, had the families affected. It wasn't paid. It wasn't paid. But yet it was a breakthrough that respected and recognized the need for family leave – for sick leave. And still here we are 30 years later, well, 29 years later, still without paid sick leave. Now, again, we had it in the BBB, but it didn't make the cut. And so we're not giving up on it.
I always like to tell this story, because it was so – when we were taking our bus tour – When Women Succeed, America Succeeds – when we were in New Haven, Congresswoman DeLauro, who's been such a champion on all of these issues, women were telling their stories.
And one woman said, ‘I'm not going to tell my story only; I'm going to tell the story of women that I see. I'm a school bus driver, and when my school bus pulls up to the curb and I see a mom with tears in her eyes, I know exactly what to expect. She's going to be putting a sick child on the bus, because she has no choice. She has – she cannot afford a caregiver to take care of the child at home. She has no paid sick leave, so she cannot take off work. In fact, she has no sick leave. If she takes a number of days to care for her daughter, she may lose her job. She may lose her job.'
So no benefit, risk job, no ability making enough money to pay for a caregiver. That child will be on a bus sick, and that isn't healthy for that child or for other children on the bus.
So these jobs on the railroad, they're tough jobs. They take skill and really experience and the rest. You would think that there would be a recognition that, if they needed sick leave, that to replace them would be difficult because of the skills required. But the fact is, is mostly they're not replaced, because it shrinks the cost of the company, increases the profits, and that's the problem that we are in. Private equity, Wall Street, taking ownership of these companies, shrinking expenses, increasing profits, no sick leave for important workers. But, again, even at the other aspects of it.
For women in the workplace, parents in the workplace – not even women, not just women – we have important work to do as a value in our country.
I'll just say that we – some of you have heard me say from time to time that Adam Smith wrote two books. This is all about capitalism serving us. I think it is, but it needs to be more compassionate. It hadn't recognized the factors of production involve respect for workers.
Adam Smith wrote a second book, not only ‘The Wealth of Nations,' in which he talked about laissez‑faire – laissez, laissez, laissez, laissez, laissez, laissez‑faire – but he also wrote another book called ‘The Theory of Moral Sentiments,' which I from time to time quote, because in it, his message in that book was that the strength of our economy and the strength of our workers go hand in hand. I wish he had written one book and put them together so that people would understand that connection. While we believe in free markets, even Adam Smith recognized respect for the workers.
So we know, just because it's the right thing to do, it's a value that we share, that we have to treat working people well, with fair wages, good benefits and safe working conditions. We hope that, as we adopt the Tentative Agreement and avert a shutdown, there will be strong bipartisan support for both bills in the Senate. You'll have to ask them when it's coming up. I don't know. But we – time is very important. So we hope it's soon.
We protect the financial security. The Congress remains hard at work until late at night, last night, starting early this morning, on the omnibus funding package. It's about taking us into the future. Passing an omnibus is our strong preference. Our leader in the House on this, of the House Democrats, is Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro. You've heard me say again and again, as an appropriator myself, left to their own devices, the Republicans and Democrats, in a bipartisan way, on the Appropriations Committee can reach a solution, and we should let them do that.
But sadly, we have no choice if they can't, that we would have to have a yearlong CR. We don't like that, but if we can't have a solution, we have no choice but to keep government open with a yearlong CR. We've made that very clear in the White House meeting the other day and in our conversations with our colleagues on the subject. It would be a last resort because, as you know, it would have a direct impact on so much that we want to do in the legislation, but we have to have agreement.
Finally, I opened on a very sad note, let me close on a happy one. There's immense joy and pride that the Senate passed the Respect for Marriage Act, a major victory for freedom, dignity and equality for all. I'm so excited. House Democrats, as you know, originally passed the bill in July, following the alarming concurrence in the Dobbs decision by Justice Thomas, when he concurred by saying – he took aim at Obergefell. He just made it clear that this could be another target.
The bill ensures that, regardless of what the MAGA majority in the Supreme Court may do in the future, the federal government will never again stand in the way of marrying the person you love. We're going to take it up next week on Tuesday. That's going to be announced by the Rules Committee, so you knew first. And we will send it swiftly to the President's desk for signature.
I'm particularly happy, because it'll be one of the last bills that I will sign as Speaker in an enrollment ceremony, and it has strong bipartisan support in the House and in the Senate. I think it's a great step forward for us.
Thank you.
Any questions?
Q. Madam Speaker?
Speaker Pelosi. Yeah, what've you got, Chad?
Q. Let me get phone here, first of all. Gravity is my enemy.
Speaker Pelosi. Any comments on that?
[Laughter]
Q. To that end here, on the rail strike question.
Speaker Pelosi. Yeah.
Q. Can you characterize Members wanting to do something because of the economic calamity that would happen if there was a strike, but also wanting to respect the unions?
Speaker Pelosi. Yeah.
Q. Wanting them to get seven days of sick days. Kind of describe that tension for us.
Speaker Pelosi. Well, this goes back a while, because these negotiations have been going on for a while, and I've had the opportunity to see the strength of the unions in terms of speaking for their membership. Some of the leaders have been leaders for a long time or have been union members for a long time, so they know the day‑to‑day of working on the railroad.
It's a tough job. And if you miss a day – say you have to miss a day, because you have to go to the doctor – you probably miss three days, because the train took off. And you miss three days or you miss four days, you're probably going to be fired.
And, again, that's not bad news to management, because they want to reduce cost. And it's very hard to hire people so well trained and so skilled at this and so experienced at it. But yet, nonetheless, their profit motive, that bottom line, is the dominant thing.
So in any case, recognizing that everybody is not here with a stakeholder mentality of what this means to the community, what it means to the shippers, what it means to the employees, the workers, just what it means to the shareholders, that's a tough place to be in a negotiation.
So in any event, under the leadership of President Biden's direction – under his direction, I shouldn't – they came up with a good agreement – increase in pay, some benefit – but it wasn't really good enough.
So they went back to the table, and they came back with another agreement that expanded the two‑work – the two‑man crew, very important. Different aspects of it. I'm getting more specific than probably I should.
But, nonetheless, it was good. Many of the unions supported it, not all of them did. And we agree, they should have paid sick leave. So should that woman who's putting her child on a school bus sick.
But – and, again, not to mix apples and oranges, but let's just take it about the railroaders. That is what we call the railroad workers. We think they should have paid sick leave.
And so that was never going to be happening in the negotiation. The railroads were just not going to that place. Maybe they should read Adam Smith's other book or maybe they should just think of stakeholders capitalism rather than shareholder capitalism. But, nonetheless, that wasn't going to happen right now.
If we had 60 votes in the Senate, it could possibly happen, but we don't have 60 votes in the Senate. We'll see. Maybe they'll surprise us in the next day or so and vote for sick leave. But that's an obstacle to it. So that's where we were.
So Members – we're very pro – let me repeat. We passed the PRO Act a number of times to enable workers to have collective bargaining.
We passed the pension legislation in the Rescue package, which made a complete difference for many, many workers throughout – union workers throughout the country.
We put – we put in almost every – in the Bipartisan Infrastructure bill, in the CHIPS and Science bill and the – in everything we've done, we've had Davis‑Bacon, prevailing wage, lifting up wages for union workers, and for all workers.
So we had been there. This President has been there. But we couldn't do what we were incapable of doing, and we could not have a strike.
Q. Madam Speaker?
Speaker Pelosi. Yes.
Q. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Ways and Means Committee, finally, in their Trump tax return case last week. I'm curious, what would you like the Committee to do with these returns they've fought so hard and so long to acquire?
Speaker Pelosi. Well, I'm not involved in that. I mean, I don't know what they intend to do. I'd like to know, just as you would like to know. I don't like – but I think that – I give credit to Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee Richie Neal. He handled this with dignity. He handled it with its purpose, that is to say, we need to see how this works, we need to possibly have legislation requiring candidates for President that reach a certain threshold, that the public has a right to see their tax returns.
And so where they go next, I don't know.
Q. If they legally can release information from those returns, do you believe they should?
Speaker Pelosi. That's a judgment they're going to have to make in keeping with what the purpose is. The purpose is how do we, how does this exercise – which took a very long time, but was upheld by the Supreme Court – the right of Congress to have access to that, to go forward.
I think the public has a right to know. That's why we should pass legislation requiring candidates to do that. That's why every other candidate has, except you know who, and who shall remain nameless here.
But yeah. So I would hope that the public would have the opportunity to see it. But again, it's complicated, it's technical, it's legal.
And Richie Neal has handled this with great dignity. There had been those in the public who have been saying, ‘He should be doing this, he should be doing that.' No. He should be handling it with the dignity that it deserves.
Q. On paid leave, Madam Speaker?
Speaker Pelosi. Yes, ma'am.
Q. You talked a lot about this during your remarks. You also seemed to reflect a little bit that it did not pass as part of Build Back Better.
Speaker Pelosi. Right.
Q. Can you just reflect a little bit and talk about that struggle to get paid leave passed? And is that some sort of regret that you were not able to get done throughout your time here?
Speaker Pelosi. Well, no. No. I mean, it's not a question of regret; it's a question of more to be done. We have to do more in terms of the Child Tax Credit.
There's a piece of the original BBB, which paid leave wasn't part of. I added that at the end. There's the family piece. It's Child Tax Credit. It's the assistance for child care. It's home health care for people who have to stay home to take care of a sibling who may be disabled or ill, a family member, a child maybe but older as well.
And respect for the people who do that for a living, to make sure that they are respected and paid adequately, the home health care workers. I, myself, would like to see them unionize. That's what our leadership is about in California.
But nonetheless, it's about a number of things, of which this is one. So there's a full agenda out there. Doesn't mean we aren't proud of what we have done. It just means it's not finished and we have more – we have more to do.
But I do think that, as with a woman's right to choose, it's something that is overarching. It's not just an issue. It's a value. It's a freedom issue, woman's right to choose.
And this is an enabling initiative. Moms and dads, not just moms, moms and dads will have the ability to take the time that they need to minister to the needs of their families in time of illness or birth or whatever it is. And that sounds like an all‑American idea to me, even though we don't have it in our country.
And I just harken back to President Clinton. So proud, and we all were. We kept passing that, but we couldn't get it signed. And he acknowledged that. It had been passed before he was President, and then he was able to sign it. And it was a big breakthrough, but it wasn't paid.
Now, some companies have – because they're trying to attract talent and they want the best, and so they have to up the ante on their benefits. So some are doing the right thing, for whatever reason, because they believe in it or because it's a competition for talent issue. But I do think that it's something that is almost a mission in our country to have. Why not? Not just because other countries have it, but because we should.
Q. Madam Speaker?
Speaker Pelosi. Yeah, Jake.
Q. Is the debt limit off the table for the lame duck? Where does that stand?
Speaker Pelosi. The debt limit, we have said again and again that we want to do that in a bipartisan way. We think that would be the appropriate way to go. Right now, we do have to, though, get to a place on the omnibus because it takes time to do, you know.
And we were discussing this last night and said, even if we had an agreement tomorrow, it would still take a while to get it in the form that would bring it to the Floor.
So that is the priority right now. We wanted to stop the work stoppage, which we did yesterday. Now the Senate will deal with that. We'll take up marriage equality next week, next Tuesday. But what remains to be done is the omnibus. We also have the Defense Authorization bill.
But – but the – I hope that we could do the debt ceiling this year, but we are striving to do it in a bipartisan way.
Q. Madam Speaker, on the omnibus –
Speaker Pelosi. Yeah.
Q. Two questions. On the omnibus, would you be able to support any deal that increases defense spending without increasing non-defense? And also a personal question. Can you just update us on your husband? How he's doing?
Speaker Pelosi. Well, thank you for asking about Paul. He's coming along. It's going to take a while. Head injuries are – they have an impact beyond surgery. You know, it's a big thing.
I thank you for asking. And it gives me an opportunity to thank everyone for the magnificent – from our grassroots activists to royalty around the world, everyone has sent him prayers. And we're believers, so we welcome that and good wishes. And I thank you for asking.
Rosa DeLauro is leading the way on our negotiation. I won't be negotiating the bill right here. But we certainly have needs in our country that must be addressed in the legislation, including the defense of our country, to protect and defend. And the strength of our country needs to be measured not only in our military might, as important as that is, but in the health and well‑being of the American people. We want the bill to reflect that.
Thank you all so much.