Transcript of Pelosi Weekly Press Conference Today
Leader Pelosi Opening Remarks.
Leader Pelosi. Good morning, everyone.
It's been an exciting week, pretty exciting: Conor Lamb's victory. Thousands of students here about gun safety. A powerful 7,000 empty shoes on the steps of the Capitol. And still no agreement on the omnibus. Lots of news breaking about Russia and still no enforcement by the President of the sanctions legislation that we sent – that he signed and we sent to him.
We are very exciting about welcoming a new Member from Pennsylvania, our newest colleague from Pennsylvania, to the Caucus. Hopefully that will be very soon. Conor Lamb's upset victory is a tribute to his extraordinary personal record and story and a laser focus on the economic issues that matter most to hardworking families.
What's interesting about it is that millions of dollars, tens of millions of dollars in dark special interest ad money still couldn't make up for the toxic reality of the GOP agenda in Washington. The tax message simply failed. And this isn't a place where the President says he won by 22; it's probably 20 points. The 20 point lead evaporated, and the tax message failed.
Families are fed up with the Republicans trying to sabotage and steal their healthcare. Health care is an important issue. And despite all the Republicans' hype, Americans can see through the GOP tax scam: Giving 83 percent of the benefits, you know it, 83 percent of the benefits to the top 1 percent, ultimately raising taxes for 86 million middle class families while contending that it's a middle class tax cut, handing a $1.5 trillion tax cut to corporate America with interest, taking us over $2 trillion further into debt, robbing from our children's future and the middle class' future.
I just want to reiterate a couple things about it because the Wall Street Journal has found that more than $200 billion in corporate buybacks were announced in the past 3 months. Now this is money that was supposed to be raises and all that. $200 billion in buybacks. Morgan Stanley analysts estimated that almost two-thirds of the corporate tax savings for the corporations would go to buybacks, dividends, mergers and acquisitions. Just 13 percent would go to bonuses and raises. Republicans mortgaged again the future of the middle class and our children to pad the pockets of big corporations and the top 1 percent.
Meanwhile, a new poll of small business owners from battleground states found that a majority believe that the tax scam favors big corporations and doesn't put small business on a level playing field. Seven in 10 will not hire new employees. Seven in 10 will not hire new employees, and 6 in 10 will not give employees a raise.
As the Trump budget shows, after adding over $2 trillion to the debt, Republicans plan $2 trillion in cuts for Medicare and Medicaid plus more from Social Security Disability Insurance, food stamps, education, HUD, the list goes on.
So the Medicare issue was an important issue in the Pennsylvania race. Medicare, Medicare, Medicare. It is so important in people's lives. It's so at risk under the Republicans. The Speaker for a long time, since a long time ago, has had in his budget to remove the guarantee of Medicare. And now, with the tax cut for corporate America and the President's budget that says we're going to cut a half a trillion for Medicare and a trillion and a half from Medicaid, people know that this is not a good deal for them. It's a raw deal. Democrats have A Better Deal: Better Jobs, Better Pay, Better Future.
American workers, seniors, all deserve better, and they are standing up for it in elections. God bless everyone who votes. I have such respect, however they vote, the fact that they vote is a real statement of patriotism and citizenship.
And speaking of standing up, yesterday, America witnessed the inspiring example of students across the country organizing walkouts to demand action to prevent gun violence. I was proud that so many congressional Democrats joined in a congressional walkout to join the kids out here. The extraordinary courage and eloquence of this generation of young people is simply extraordinary. We were proud to greet many of them outside the Capitol to join in their call to say: Enough.
I think my best line they liked, the one they seemed to like the most is, as I say on the floor on a regular basis to my colleagues: Your political survival is not worth anything compared to protecting the survival of our children. We need a vote.
Inside the Capitol today, this afternoon, we'll put forth our Previous Question for commonsense bipartisan gun violence prevention: the Thompson-King public – the background check bill; Background Check Completion, Mr. Clyburn; the Gun Violence Restraining Order, Mr. Carbajal; and the Gun Violence Research Act, Congresswoman Stephanie Murphy. She's been the leader, a great leader, on that.
There is bipartisan consensus in the Congress. There should be an opportunity for bipartisan actions in the people's House. We just ask the Speaker to give us a vote. But, instead of that and instead of creating good-paying jobs or raising wages for hard-working men and women, Republicans are giving Wall Street a free pass to drag us back to the catastrophic meltdown in 2008.
The Republican Congress is more interested in holding votes to eliminate key safeguards to protect consumers, taxpayers and our economy from bad behavior on Wall Street. The GOP is giving a break to many of the same banks that were bailed out by taxpayers. They are taking us right back to unraveling the protections for consumers, for taxpayers, again, for our economy. They're eliminating protections against risky financial marketplace abuse and against the cruel practice of redlining, which denies many of our communities the American Dream.
It's a showcase of a Republican Congress that relentlessly prioritizes the interests of the well-connected and the wealthiest 1 percent while the needs of working families are undermined or ignored. Democrats continue to offer hardworking middle class American families A Better Deal: Better Jobs, Better Wages, A Better Future, real solutions, like bold investments in job creating infrastructure, lowering the cost of prescription drugs and other necessities, protecting Americans' endangered pensions. And that is something we hope will come out of the caps deal when we form the commission to protect pensions.
But here we are in our fifth continuing resolution still waiting for the Republicans to come back with a global offer as to how they would like to proceed to pass a bill until the close of this fiscal year, September 30, to invest in the American people. We had a victory with the caps bill. This is the manifestation of it, but they insist on poison pills and the rest. Hopefully they'll get serious and we can get this done before the 23rd of March. We can't possibly have another continuing resolution.
So, a lot of stuff. I didn't even go into the Russia stuff with all the statements that are coming out, identifying who the offenders were in undermining our election. I did mention that the President still refuses to enforce the law that was sent to him, with his input, to have sanctions on Russia.
Any questions?
Yes.
Okay. But this is not the sanctions bill that was sent. This is a previous sanctions bill. This is part of that, too? Trump announced this morning, in response to cyber-attacks, the administration should and can do more.
Yes, sir?
* * *
Q: Republicans have discounted Conor Lamb's win as sort of a unicorn –
Leader Pelosi. Oh, you're going to talk politics. Okay. That's why you are in Chad's seat.
Q: They discounted it. They said that there won't be another moderate conservative that can run in a lot of these districts that you need to flip to win the House. Are you at all concerned that Conor Lamb's win is not a signal of a major wave coming for Democrats?
Leader Pelosi. No. They lost the seat 20 points that Trump – he would say 22. Let's say 18. It's a district that, not only did Trump carry it big, Romney carried it big by like 15 points. This is a Republican district. So let them think that. Let them think that, but this was a very big win.
Medicare was an issue. Health care was an issue. Labor played a very major role there. So this was a great victory. His personal story and his record are an important part of it. The comparison between the two candidates was drastic. I mean, he's superb, and we look forward to welcoming him here.
But I don't – Republicans will say what they say. They had to spend. Win or lose, it was a victory for the American people when they had to spend $10 million to protect a Republican seat. That bodes well for the American people that we're going to have some change here. We will either change who is in office or change their view of what is important to their constituents.
No, it was a tremendous victory.
Yes, ma'am?
Q: Yes, I was wondering – Maria Pena with La Opinion, and thank you for doing this – I was wondering if you have been approached by the White House about the latest efforts to fix DACA? What is the Democrats' stance on that, and do you see it included in the omnibus spending bill?
Leader Pelosi. How can I say this in the most nonpartisan, gentlest way? You mean the President's three year – what are we talking about?
Q: Well, he said, the White House says that they rejected the three, the previous three –
Leader Pelosi. He has already rejected what he offered.
Q: Well, now they are saying that they don't agree with the three year DACA fix for three years of border spending.
Leader Pelosi. But that was what the President proposed not 48 hours ago. So it's very hard to comment on something that is like, I don't know, it just keeps changing all the time. And so they've already backed off of that.
So, in any event, let me just get to the omnibus bill. The omnibus bill is a very big bill. It is necessary for us to pass it to defend our country, to invest in our children's future, to keep America number one in every respect, to do so in a way that creates jobs. It won't be reducing the deficit because of what the tax bill did, but hopefully the growth that it can create with investments in research and development, support for the NIH, et cetera, will help do that.
They have not come back – excuse me – with a serious – there's no shelf here, you'd think I'd know that by now – they have not come back with a serious global response, and that's what we're waiting for them.
There's nothing to comment on because they have already backed off the President's statement. It is my understanding from the Republicans in Congress that it's hard for them to give us a global statement which includes everything – the Homeland Security piece; Labor, Health and Human Services – because they don't know where the President is.
Q: But the President keeps blaming Democrats for impeding any agreement on a DACA fix?
Leader Pelosi. And?
Q: He tweets that out constantly.
Leader Pelosi. And? So the President is blaming somebody? Well, thank you for following the issue, but the fact is that the President is disingenuous when he says that. It is not real. He knows that we have said to the President in our first meeting
Chuck [Schumer], the distinguished Minority Leader in the Senate, when we met with the President, we said: ‘This is a values issue for us. This is really important to our country. Let's just fix this.' ‘Yes, I want to. Let's just get our border secured, border security.'
And the President has not. He's met with people. He's agreed to things. He's made suggestions. And he's backed off. So he can say whatever he wants, but the fact that we don't have anything rests clearly in his office.
And I trust him; he says that he wants to do something. So let's do it.
I don't trust some of his advisers because I don't think they want to do something. But as I've said to him: You're the President. I assume if you want it, it will happen.
I'm still hopeful that will be the case.
Yes, sir?
Q: So, on this latest Russia sanctions here, I don't quite understand how this might play out because we have the Committee, the Republicans on the Intelligence Committee, saying that there was no meddling and they're trying to enforce sanctions because of Russian influence might be different in the election.
What do you think should happen? And are they at crossways with themselves over what the Republicans on the committee are saying and what the administration is trying to do?
Leader Pelosi. Well, they have even started to back off their own statement. They said originally, or yeah, originally, more recently that there was nothing in there that indicated that the Russians had an interest in advancing President Trump or having an impact on the election. Most recently they have said, ‘Well, maybe not.'
And, today, the Department of Treasury issued Treasury sanctions sanctioning Russia's cyber actors for interference in the 2016 elections and malicious cyber-attacks. They designated five entities and 19 individuals under the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act. So, if you want, you can get it online, but I can read it to you, if you wish.
So the fact is, 14 months ago, January 6, 2017, the Intelligence Committee issued a report, a consensus report with highest confidence that the Russians meddled, disrupted our election. Fourteen months later, we still have nothing of any serious nature from the Congress of the United States on this subject. You see what the Republicans, the Intelligence Committee in the House, did – completely irresponsible. Hopefully something more will come in the Senate.
There are Committees of jurisdiction that stood here, our Ranking Members saying what hearings we expect from those Committees, but we haven't gotten any of them. And now the Administration has put out its statement. So this relates to elections. This is really important.
A foreign power meddled in our election. It took a very long time for the President to – and the Administration – to accept that fact. I don't know if the President still has, but the Treasury Department has, and I assume that they work for him. And then the Republicans in Congress putting out a foolish statement last week and now having to back off from that.
So, again, people vote; I respect that, however they vote. They expect their vote will be counted as cast. We have a responsibility to do that.
Whether people across the country are interested in other aspects of the Russia investigation remains to be seen. That's up to Mr. Mueller's [Special Counsel], what comes from there. I still think we should have an independent commission to review the whole picture.
What is relevant right now is that, in the elections, there's been a clear indication that we are accepting the fact of what they did and what we now want to do something about it. You saw our task force here under the leadership of Mr. Bennie Thompson and Bob Brady for proposals that we have to protect the integrity of our critical infrastructure, which is our voting system.
Yes, ma'am?
Q: Back to politics for a second. Conor Lamb ran an ad straight at the camera saying: ‘I do not support Nancy Pelosi.'
He ran against you the entire time. Do you think your other candidates should do the same thing? Does that pose a problem for you if you take back the House?
Leader Pelosi. I don't think that he ran against me the entire time. I think he ran on his positive agenda protecting Medicare, preeminently that, being there for working families. He had strong support from labor. On the one hand, Republicans are saying: ‘See, he ran like a conservative.'
And on the other hand, I guess that identifies that they want to support Medicare, which they don't, and the rest.
So it was, I think it was a very issues-oriented campaign.
As a part of it was tens of millions of dollars of ads coming in from the Koch brothers and that will happen all over the country, demonizing me as the leader of the Democratic Party.
I just wanted him to win. I don't think that that really had that much impact on the race. He won. If we hadn't won, you might have a question, but we won. We won the race. The people – the D next to his name was very significant in those blue parts.
He made a tremendous and great successful effort to minimize the damage in the red, red counties. I think he got sort of the same vote that Hillary Clinton did. He must have gotten more. In some areas, they had a similar thing, but obviously there were many more people who voted, like 10,000 or 12,000. That would be a lot in a special election because usually you go down. So, no, I don't think that that's it.
I don't think your opponent should choose your party's leaders. I think that we have an important case to make. They are coming after me because of my city, and they are against LGBT, and they're against poor children. That's been my mantra, the poor children in America that I'm here to support.
Yes, I am a liberal. But I don't think it's the misrepresentations that are, the demonization that are put out against any leader, you know, on the Democratic side, whoever the leader is will be the target. Tip O'Neill was the target. That's just the way it is. Tom Foley was the target. That's the way it is.
But, no, I feel pretty confident that we're going to win. We're going to win big. We're going to win a lot of seats. And that's going to be good for the American people.
Yes, sir?
Q: Just to follow up on that, since you expect these attacks against you in many of these races, what is your message to incumbents and challengers?
Leader Pelosi. Well, the fact is that one candidate in Texas came out and said he would not be for me, and he came in fourth. He came in fourth. So let's not read too much into this.
This is part of the bankruptcy of the Republican Party. They are devoid of ideas about how they are going to meet the needs of the American people. So it's an ad hominem. They can't win on the issues, so they go after a person.
And I feel pretty confident about my ability to do, first and foremost, be a master legislator for the good of the American people, that I have proven that. But what you've done is not why you should go forward. Why you should go forward is, what are you going to do next?
And we have a very positive agenda about how we take back the Congress for the Democrats. I have a strong following in the country, and I don't think that the Koch brothers should decide who the leader of the Democratic Party is in the House.
Yes, sir?
Q: On DACA, is there any –
Leader Pelosi. Thank you for getting back to substance.
Q: Is there any incentive right now for Democrats in Congress to work with Republicans, given what you just said about Trump and given that we don't have a hard deadline with the court decision that was looming last month? Is there any incentive to work a compromise out, given the environment right now and given that DHS isn't set to begin deportation?
Leader Pelosi. It depends. There is an initiative to, thank you, because you understand it the way you framed that question. There's an initiative to have a discharge petition for a rule that would enable maybe three or four bills to come to the floor: Goodlatte, DREAM, Hurd, something, maybe an adjusted Hurd, and then something else the Speaker might come up with and maybe the bipartisan bill in the Senate, I don't know – and be queen of the hill. Whoever wins most, wins best. And if it is a tie, whoever wins last in that tie wins best.
So that might be an opportunity if there's more. There's not a whole lot of reason to negotiate to do anything that is not already covered by the court decision.
Q: I guess the question is then, should Democrats give border wall funding, for example, right now when there isn't a hard deadline on the table like there was last month?
Leader Pelosi. What do you think? I mean, should we give a border wall for nothing? No, I don't think so. First of all, I think the border – did you see it, how high it is and the rest of the President's wall?
I mean, really, in a civilized society, we would do something like that, as obnoxious as it is? I mean, that's a community there with a border running through it. Okay. We have a difference of opinion on that. But a wall that big separating people? I mean, really? I guess maybe I've seen so many walls. The wall in Northern Ireland years ago before the agreement, and it was strange to see, and that was like a tin fence. This is a big wall.
So, no, I mean, really? When there was comprehensive immigration reform, which was bipartisan, in the Senate and protected 11 million people, there were serious concessions made in the balance. For nothing, would we give for the wall? No. I mean, what would be our motivation?
But let me say this, and let me be very clear: If the Dreamers never existed and thank God that they do, our inspiration, our pride, thank God that they do, but if they never existed, we still have a problem with what the President wants to do in the bill. You know, they want to have enhanced internal enforcement that really goes against the values of our country, in my view.
So it will be interesting. That is why we want them to come back with a global counterproposal. Now, we said: Let's just do this clean. Take out the poison pills. Let's do what the appropriators negotiated in terms of money. There are few more things to be settled, but not much.
They came back with something that still had the poison pills and the rest, and hadn't addressed some of the concerns we had. So we're waiting for that global proposal. And there's not much time; it's next Friday.
So, if they don't have a bill today, which they don't, to post, they don't like to post it over the weekend because then their Members see it, and then so they will probably figure out something Monday, and then but it will be close, so we have to come to agreement, and we're fully prepared to do that.
But this is the fifth Continuing Resolution. That is so dysfunctional as far as government is concerned. And as I say, we were very proud of winning the fight on the caps and just remained for the appropriators, and being an appropriator myself in my day on Committees, I know that, in a bipartisan way, the appropriators can work it out, and they by and large have, except for the poison pills and a few issues that relate to where are they going on Homeland Security.
And I don't know if they know where they're going because as the lady, our guest here, mentioned – she didn't mention it – but I mentioned in response to her, there's confusion as to where the President is and what he would support.
Yes, ma'am?
Q: On the omnibus, it seems like one of the major issues holding up the talks is the Gateway funding that the President has communicated to Speaker Ryan that he's opposed to that and is quietly threatening a veto.
Have you heard from the President on that, or the White House on that and do Democrats think that is important to make sure that that is included in the omnibus?
Leader Pelosi. I haven't heard from the President on this. Have we heard from our office on this? No. We haven't heard, but perhaps we'll hear when they come back with their counter to the counter to the counterproposal, and hopefully that will be soon.
But it is – let's get back to the – in a few minutes, we'll be all going to celebrate St. Patrick's Day. I don't have Irish grandparents, but I do have Irish grandchildren: Liam, Sean and Ryan. Their other grandparents live in Ireland.
It's always a happy day in our country where we come together as Democrats and Republicans, hosted by the House, involving the Senate, with the Taoiseach of Ireland and the new Taoiseach of Ireland and the President of the United States.
It's really, to me, a celebration of immigration, of the wonderful contribution that the Irish have made and all immigrants make to our country, the pride the Irish take in their heritage, the fierce patriotism they have for America. And, for me, it's also a religious feast.
And I'll just tell you: Last year, I was sitting there, and they had dessert on the table. And I said to father: ‘Father, will you give us a dispensation to eat dessert during Lent?'
And he said: ‘Well, you know, after a certain age, you don't have to observe those rules anymore.'
So I said: ‘Father, don't go into politics, don't go into diplomacy. That was not the answer.'
The answer is, ‘Yes, I'll give you a dispensation.'
And, in fact, he did. It wasn't the way I wanted to hear it. In any event, Happy St. Patrick's Day to all of you.
We had a crazy week because orange is the color of our fight for gun violence. Orange is not the color to wear around St. Patrick's Day. So, with all of the things red for our girls in Africa. We wear red on Wednesday for our girls in Africa, orange for gun safety, green for St. Patrick's – it's an interesting time.
In any event, that should be our biggest problem.
Thank you all very much. It's an interesting time. It's going to be an action packed week because it will culminate next week in hopefully passing the omnibus bill, but – orange, for the children.
In addition to that, we will be welcoming the marchers here on probably the day before, the 23rd, but the march being on the 24th for gun safety in our country. And, again, a salute to the eloquence, courage and determination of the young people across the country.
Thank you all very much.