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. Good morning. Here we are. Just came from the Floor. We are passing the PACT Act. It's pretty exciting.

Let's start with the beginning of the week – earlier this week, when the President of the United States delivered a State of the Union address that gave the American people hope and confidence in their future, had empathy for those who are still suffering from the aftermath of COVID and the economic downside of all of that, and again, talked about our commitment to democracy by helping the people of Ukraine.

Let me just start with Ukraine. It's just amazing to see the diabolical actions taken by Putin, as he has complete disregard for sovereignty, democracy or human life – including civilian life and those of children. I'm very pleased that we had a very strong bipartisan resolution yesterday expressing support for the people of Ukraine and talking about our commitment for helping with their defense, helping with their economy, helping with their humanitarian needs. And then, again, we will be – in our Appropriations bill, we received the President's request. Taking – having that under consideration now as to how we go forward.

The – there's so much to be said about Ukraine, including just the most recent statement by – the readout from the French on the Macron‑Putin conversation. I don't know whose analysis it is, but the readout was that the worst is yet to come. There's more bad to come. So it's pretty, pretty horrible.

So again, I want to salute the President. He, working with our allies, are presenting a united front against Putin. If his intention was to divide NATO and the West – not just NATO, but other countries – in fact, he has instead unified them even further in terms of their commitment to sovereignty, democracy and peace. Peace, peace, peace.

Again, over the past year, the U.S. has sent Ukraine over a billion dollars – about a billion, over a billion dollars in security assistance and again, with our allies, continue to do even more in those areas I mentioned: security, economics, their economy and their – meeting their humanitarian needs. The President also talked in his speech about some unity measures in the Congress of the United States.

We are now in the midst of completing the COMPETES Act. We call it COMPETES – it has another name. America COMPETES in 2022 – the America COMPETES Act. They have a different name, but we have the same goal. It's about three things. It's about – it's about making chips, developing chips. $52 billion for chips and semiconductors. It's about addressing the supply chain needs. $[45] billion to address the supply chain – to increase supply and therefore reduce cost and make us independent and self‑sufficient as a country by not depending on the needs of some countries – the supplies of some countries of concern. And then the third part, which is about education and research and STEM research – science, technology, engineering, and math – in order to have more diversity and more – everyone participating in the economic security and prosperity of our country.

The President also talked about what we can do in some other areas: in fighting cancer, opioids, issues like that, where I think we do have common ground and can participate. And he talked about our veterans in that unity message. And in that, he talked – and I was particularly excited about [the] Honoring [Our] PACT Act. Some of you have heard me say before – this goes way back, 40 years for me, as the Chair of the California Democratic Party when I went with Dick Gregory for – to be part of a hunger strike with our Vietnam vets who were protesting against the use of Agent Orange and what it meant to their health after the war. It took us a very long time to address those concerns. In fact, we didn't really complete it until a few years ago when we addressed the Blue Water – the Navy part of that. But we can't wait that long for the burn pits.

So right now on the Floor, we are just gaveling down – and that's why I was running a little bit late – the burn pits legislation, where our young people who – our men and women in uniform, whenever they find themselves in harm's way to fight for our freedom, are also in harm's way because of the burn pits. And they have cancer after the fact. Sometimes it doesn't even come until six, seven years later. But the fact is, if they were present, there is a presumption that – that there is a relationship.

We had a press conference yesterday on it. We had our amendments yesterday. Today, we passed the bill. And now we will work with the Senate to make it easier and healthier for our – you know, it's a cost of war. And it really amazed me – and I am rarely amazed and surprised around here – but for the Republicans to go to the Floor and say the veterans really don't want this help with their [health] because it's going to cost money. And they're more concerned about the budget than they are about their health.

Oh, really? You just gave tax cuts in 2017 to the richest people in America. Tax cuts for the rich; cancer for our veterans. That's how we see this discussion and this debate. That's – Mr. Raul Ruiz has been a very important part of all this – says it – and I agree with him.

Mr. Mark Takano, Chair of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, has done a great job with all of this, and I'm very proud of his work [on the] Honoring Our PACT [Act] – honoring the pact. And then, Elaine Luria, who is a veteran herself, and also a Member of the Armed Services Committee – very much a part of this legislation.

But, again, we have bipartisan support. There's a good number of Republicans who voted for it today; a larger number did not. But nonetheless, it's a bipartisan bill.

So getting back to the State of the Union, I was very proud of what the President had to say about Ukraine, what he had to say about our veterans, what he had to say about our country's future and the priorities that he put forth – where he saw places where we could be unified, Democrats and Republicans, in coming together on all of this.

We are in the midst of putting together our omnibus bill, so I'm going to have to run. We are also in the midst of putting together our COMPETES bill. And both of them, the omnibus has a shorter fuse, but both of them need to be done as soon as we possibly can.

With that, I'll be happy to take any questions you may have.

***

Q. Madam Speaker?

Speaker Pelosi. Yeah. Why don't you go first this time?

Q. Obviously, the January 6th Committee had a filing last night. And I know you don't want to talk directly about their work.

Speaker Pelosi. That's right.

[Laughter.]

Q. Obviously, you don't want to talk about their work. But that said, when you were on the dais on January 6th –

Speaker Pelosi. Yes.

Q. – and your security detail rushed you out –

Speaker Pelosi. Right.

Q. – do you think that the threat was there, that they were trying to overturn the election, the mob outside of the building? Because what's reflected in the filing today. What was your – what did you think was going on when that happened – when that happened on January 6th?

Speaker Pelosi. Frankly, my concern was for the safety of my Members, if you want to know what I was thinking. I was thinking about the safety of my Members, the safety of our staff, the safety of the press who were covering us. So my – I was totally consumed. I didn't want to leave because I was like, well, I – you know. But, again, that was, that's – it totally consumed my thoughts.

Q. Did you think that this was a threat to the Electoral College and the integrity of the election at that moment?

Speaker Pelosi. I thought it was a threat to our democracy, our Constitution and the Capitol building and all that entails.

Jake? Jake?

Q. Could you – on the omnibus, could we get an update on where you are? I mean, it seems like there's a bunch of riders still outstanding. And furthermore, on the $22.5 billion in COVID money, Republicans are balking at that. How do you – how do you see, how do you see the state of play?

Speaker Pelosi. Well, the appropriators will – will be negotiating all of this. The fact is, the $22 billion for COVID is absolutely necessary. In fact, we probably will need more as we need more therapies. The, this – one of the pieces of this is to buy the pills that will be: you get a sign, you take the pill. It's no longer about something being at subfreezing temperature, only having a shelf life of a certain amount of days.

This is science. This is going forward. So I would hope that they would see the wisdom of the science of what we need to do in terms of COVID. Because the last thing we need is more transmission. Transmission is where variants are created. A new variant is a new challenge. So let's do as much prevention or early intervention as we can. And I would hope that they – now, how they pay for it, this or that, that's a negotiation there.

And what was the other thing?

Q. On the Ukraine money, did you plan on pushing that out as a separate vote? And then how do you plan on handling the Ukraine money?

Speaker Pelosi. Well, at the present time the fastest way for us to get the Ukraine money is for us to have it on the – this legislation. So we'd hope that we can just come to agreement in putting it forth. And it's about, again, humanitarian assistance, it's about security assistance, and it's about economic assistance for them. So it's very important.

And this is the legislative process. We will – I'm an appropriator. So you know, I'm always trusting that, left to their own devices, the appropriators – Democrats, Republicans, House and Senate – understand the urgency of meeting the needs of the American people as we keep government open.

And in this case, we have a pandemic to address and the challenge that we face in Ukraine. And hopefully, that, now, that will be – Ukraine and COVID will be emergency.

Q. Right.

Speaker Pelosi. It will be emergency. They won't be part of the regular budget caps and the rest.

Yes, ma'am?

Q. Madam Speaker, average gas prices in the Bay Area surged above $5 a gallon for the first time ever in history. So how –

Speaker Pelosi. About $5 dollars a gallon?

Q. Yeah, above $5 a gallon. So how high do gas prices need to get before you would support something like opening up Federal lands to drilling?

Speaker Pelosi. Well, let me just say that the issue of the price of gas and the price of oil is directly related to what is happening in the Ukraine. It doesn't mean it can't go up and down without a Russian diabolical intervention into a sovereign country, but it is related to that.

And I heard a parliamentarian from Ukraine today saying, ‘Our people are being killed, our country is being overrun, and people are complaining about paying a little more for the price of gas.' Well, we don't want people to have to pay a little more for the price of gas. And one of the suggestions that has come up is that we have a holiday from the gas tax.

I bring that up because that's what we've heard the most of. And that sounds good. But do you know that there is no guarantee that the oil companies pass that reduction on to the consumer? And it's very hard to write a bill that requires them to pass it on to the consumer. You think that it's at the pump, it's the consumer paying it, it comes off. But that's not the way it works.

So I think that if we can reduce – if we can have a holiday that guarantees the consumer benefits rather than more profits for the oil companies, that would be a path that we can take. The President has already talked about releasing oil from the – as he already has done – from the SPRO. And as I said, I'm not for drilling on public lands.

Yes, ma'am?

Q. Just to follow up on Chad's question, with respect to what you and every Member experienced, and given this filing that the Committee released last night, do you believe former President Trump should be held criminally responsible for –

Speaker Pelosi. I'm not going to answer any questions about what the Committee is doing. They have their independence. I've kept myself completely separate from their actions. And I have no intention of commenting on them, except to thank them for seeking the truth and to seeking – and seeking the truth so that the American people know what the assault was on our Constitution, our Congress, our Capitol. Capitol – that's easy, you just repair it. The traumatic effect on our workers and the rest – harder to repair. It was a terrible thing.

And again, seeking the truth is very important, and it won't be happening with my answering questions in here. But right now, we're trying to save the lives of our veterans, we're trying to meet the needs of the American people with our omnibus bill, and we have many challenges ahead of us.

The President put forth a blueprint, again, for strength and progress and confidence and empathy, for meeting the needs of the American people. That's what our legislative focus is. The investigation of the Committee is their work.

Q. Madam Speaker, there's been a push by some Democrats to ban the import of Russian oil. And I believe that Senators Manchin and Murkowski are going to report the bill on that today. Where do you stand?

Speaker Pelosi. I'm all for that. Ban it.

Q. Ban the oil?

Speaker Pelosi. Ban the oil coming from Russia. Yeah.

Yes, ma'am?

Q. Madam Speaker, we saw the State of the Union, no masks there. We saw the guidance come down on Capitol Hill. Is it time to reopen the Capitol to visitors? And should this be the last extension of proxy voting in the House?

Speaker Pelosi. No, that's up to the Capitol Physician. We take all of our guidance from there, including opening the House. I think you'll see an unfolding now of the Capitol opening. It's about COVID and it's about security. Mostly it's about COVID, though. And so that will be up to the Sergeant at Arms, and it will be up to the Capitol Physician, and we just take our guidance from them.

And we were very fortunate that they came to the conclusion that all Members could participate in the State of the Union address, but it was up to them. We could not make that call.

Yes?

Staff. Last question.

Q. Madam Speaker, on the State of the Union, we did see numerous outbursts from Representatives Boebert and Greene during President Biden's speech. As I'm sure you probably remember, when Congressman Joe Wilson yelled, ‘You lie' at President Obama in 2009, the House actually passed a resolution of disapproval on that.

Speaker Pelosi. Uh‑huh.

Q. We haven't heard any talk of that now. But I'm wondering, just what is your reaction to those outbursts? Should any action be taken, and what does it say about the Republicans?

Speaker Pelosi. Let me just say this. I agree with what Senator Lindsey Graham said: ‘Shut up.' That's what he said to them: ‘I think they should just shut up.'

Thank you all very much.