Transcript of Pelosi Press Conference Today

Leader Pelosi Opening Remarks:

Leader Pelosi.  Good morning.

Here we are 7 months since the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States, and as we look to our responsibilities to the American people we can see that it's 7 months of failure.

It is all about security.  Our national security, whether that is national security globally, homeland security, personal security, our national security has been jeopardized by his attitude toward Putin.  He has put Putin on a pedestal.  He has questioned Article 5 of NATO.  He has flirted with the idea of not enforcing or expanding any sanctions against Russia in terms of their aggressive military behavior in Europe.

In terms of our economic security, where are the jobs?  The election was about jobs.  Jobs.  Jobs.  Jobs.  He promised jobs.  What has he done?  He's been a jobs loser.  He has one bill that he has sent over here, healthcare bill, takes over 20 million, 23, 24, 25, you take whatever estimate, 25 million, 23 – let's take the low figure – million Americans will lose their health coverage because of his proposal.  And it is a job loser, 1.8 – estimated to be 1.8 million jobs lost.  Donald Trump is a job loser.

And, third, in terms of the security of our democracy, here he has a foreign country interfering, an adversarial country interfering in our election.  It is an absolute fact the Russians hacked, probably altered and leaked information into the election which had a disruptive impact on the election.

The President doesn't seem to be even curious about that.  In fact, Republicans in Congress and [Trump] have stood in the way of an outside, independent commission to review all of that.  We have a special counsel, who is highly respected, [Robert] Mueller, and that will proceed within the Justice Department reporting to Trump appointees.  That's progress.  We have the House and Senate Intelligence Committees making progress in their investigations, as we saw yesterday, on some of this, but that is within the Republican Congress, and we are limited by what the Republicans are willing to do.

That is why we need an outside commission so we can get the facts.  Let's get the facts and get over this.  Let's bring people together.  That's our responsibility.

We have a beautiful Constitution of the United States.  We all take an oath to uphold it, to support and defend it.  And yet, what the President is doing is to undermine it.  All of the blessings of liberty that are in the more perfect union – domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, ensure justice, the list goes on – depend on a system of checks and balances that follows in the body of the Constitution, and he is undermining the system of checks and balances, of separation of power.

And so we have to take stock here and say this is so much bigger than politics, so much bigger than Democrats and Republicans, about how we protect the American people, how we grow our economy, good?paying jobs, increasing wages, and how we protect our democracy as a model to the world.

And you all, you are a very important part of that, because following the checks and balances in the Constitution are the amendments, the Bill of Rights, ensuring freedom of the press.  He tries to undermine the balance of powers within the government, undermine the freedom of the press outside the Congress.

You are the guardians of the democracy.  Your freedom of expression, whether we agree with you or not, nonetheless is to be respected, and that is a flagship issue of a democracy.  Authoritarians want to suppress the press, and that's what we see here.

So, again, we stand ready to work with the administration, with the Republicans, on a jobs bill, an infrastructure bill that would be really, truly an infrastructure bill, to work with them to address the improvements we can make in our Tax Code, whether it is about fairness, about transparency, about closing special interest loopholes, lower the corporate rate, whatever it is to create growth, to create good?paying jobs in our country as we reduce the deficit.  We see none of that.

With that, I am pleased to take any questions you may have.

* * *

Q:  Leader Pelosi, the President tweeted this morning essentially accusing Director Comey of lying under oath yesterday.  Do you think the President needs to go under oath to address this either to Mueller or to one of the committees in Congress investigating this now? 

Leader Pelosi.  It will take me all day to tell you what I think the President should be doing.  I started, as I said on one of the shows this morning, with a good night's sleep.

The President's fitness for office is something that has been called into question.  It takes a certain curiosity to learn the facts, to base your comments on evidence and data and truth.  It takes a certain discipline to be able to prioritize what is important as we try to bring the country together.  And it takes some kind of stamina to keep your thoughts together.  And I'm very worried about his fitness.

But that's something he and the people in the White House have to make a judgment about, and I don't know if there is the courage or the conviction in the White House to say to the President, ‘You shouldn't be tweeting something like that.  It's beneath the dignity of the office you serve.'

So I don't know.  I'm not one to say the President should come here to testify, if that is your question.  Maybe it would come to that.  He probably would like to come here.  He's all about a reality show, so this might fit right into his agenda.

But for right now I think that we have to exercise our oversight responsibilities in Congress.  I think we should have an outside commission to examine this.

And, again, this isn't about relitigating the past election in terms of the outcome.  It is about making sure it doesn't happen in the future.  Again, that an adversarial country could have an impact or our election and our country and what that means to the rest of the world.  And as they do that in other countries as well, it is to undermine democracy.  And does the President even have a curiosity about what the impact all this had on the election?

So, again, I ask the question, what do the Russians have on Donald Trump politically, personally or financially that he just won't go to that place and instead enshrines them, sings, dances to their tune?

And Republicans in Congress have been resistant to finding out the truth.

So I think, you know, there are other remedies that we can exhaust.  I respect the opinion of those who think he should come.  But I think we, if the Republicans in Congress would be more, shall we say, open to facts and the truth, we can learn a lot without the President.

Q:  Would you permit me a follow?up?  You mentioned the sort of forward?looking part of this.  What steps is this Congress taking or does it need to take sooner rather than later to strengthen America's defenses against another intrusion like this?  I mean, you have an election in Virginia on Tuesday. 

Leader Pelosi.  Well, we had one in California last week.

Here is the thing.  It was very obvious to many of us early on, I said at the Convention, at the opening breakfast with the Christian Science Monitor folks, that it is an absolute fact that the Russians are hacking and leaking in our elections.  It is an absolute fact.  I don't know that, I wouldn't be able to say it publicly if I knew it through classified information, but I knew it because it cost [us] a million dollars to find out at the DCCC [Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee] who was hacking us.  And then later, by October, all of the intelligence leaders were agreeing to a statement that Russia was doing this, not Mr. Comey but all of the others.

At that time the four leaders, Leader McConnell, Leader Schumer, the Speaker of the House, highest of all, and I, sent to a letter to the Secretaries of State throughout the country saying that we have resources available to help protect the mechanisms of elections, not to interfere, let the states run their elections, but to say that certain resources were available to them.

The Republicans were resistant to saying that, resisted our saying that we considered the election process and mechanics of election as critical infrastructure.  Later, the Secretary of Homeland Security made such a designation, but we did not say that in our letter.  In fact, they insisted that we say that we are not saying that.  But we did recognize that there was a problem and that there were resources available nationally for them to exploit, take advantage of, for the protection of our system.

Q:  Madam Leader?

Leader Pelosi.  Yes, sir?

Q:  I want to follow up here a little bit.  So you talk about the possibility of him presenting his side of things, maybe to the special counsel.  We have had Presidents do that? 

Leader Pelosi.  No, I don't know that he would do it.  I mean, they just have to follow the facts where they lead.

Q:  But we have had Presidents do that before.  President Clinton did that with the deposition in the Whitewater, Monica Lewinsky situation.  You talked about the possibility, ‘the reality show,' as you put it, of maybe him wanting to come here to Congress, but you also talked about the importance of balance of powers.  You have that in a parliamentary system.  We don't have that here.  That would be extraordinary if he were to do that.

Leader Pelosi.  Yes, I do.  I think that that is something that we have to weigh the equity of, because when President Clinton, that was to ?? that wasn't to Congress.  That wasn't to Congress.

So we have to understand that we are in an extraordinary circumstances.  We have never been to a place like this.  And what did the former Director of National Intelligence say in his speech the other day, that Watergate pales in comparison to what is happening now.

Yes, sir?

Q:  Based on what came out of the hearing yesterday involving Attorney General Sessions and based on some reports from the White House that maybe even the President lacks a degree of confidence in him, what is your level of confidence in Attorney General Sessions and do you believe he should still be in that job? 

Leader Pelosi.  On March 2, I said he should resign as Attorney General.  On March 2, I said Attorney General Sessions should not be in that job and he should resign.  That is, what, 3 months ago, more than 3 months ago.  So that is my position on him.

Q:  Do you feel even stronger after yesterday?  Did that change, move the ball forward for you anymore in that respect? 

Leader Pelosi.  Well, how much more can he do than resign?  Resign twice?  I don't think that he honored his recusal.  What I can say without confirming or denying what came out of that room, which was a closed session?  I had for a long time the benefit of briefing.

Yes, sir?

Q:  Leader Pelosi, the President has said that he feels completely, totally vindicated after Mr. Comey's testimony yesterday.  What's your reaction to that?  Do you see it that way? 

Leader Pelosi.  No, I don't see it that way at all.  But I do see that he might see it that way, because as I said earlier, facts, evidence, data, curiosity about the truth, discipline in his comments are not hallmarks of his Presidency.

What I did say this morning, in case you missed me on TV, is follow this.  Now, this was early this morning, and in light of events that have come forth since.  I said to him that New Yorkers have said to me, those who have had business dealings with him, he operates this way.  First, he tries to charm you, President [Trump] tries to charm you.  If that doesn't work, he tries to bully you.  If that doesn't work, he walks away from the deal.  And if that doesn't work, he sues you.  So charm, bully, abandon, sue.

And I didn't realize it, but when I got back to my office, like an hour later, I saw that they are filing suit against Comey.  So he tried to charm him.  He tried to bully him.  He tried to – tossed him out.  And now he is going to sue him.  Following suit.  I mean, he is true to form, true to his nature.  That's not how a democracy works.  It may be how a bully works.

But in any case, I think his statements need some discipline, and I don't know if anybody in the White House has the courage to discipline the President.  As I have said about that, if you want to work in the White House, know your blood type, because he'll throw you under the bus in a second, as he has done with others when he has abandoned them.  But it's too bad, because he needs work, and he needs sleep.

Yes, sir?

Q:  Madam Leader, as you know, the markets react to uncertainty.  Are you able to reassure investors that we may not have debt ceiling drama? 

Leader Pelosi.  I hope not.  The full faith and credit of the United States of America is guaranteed in our Constitution.  We really do not even have to take legislative action.  But we do.  And I would hope that we would have no debate about it.

Because, as you recall, a few years ago, even when we had the questioning of it, when the Republicans said they were not going to lift the debt ceiling, President Obama was President, and of course they had the majority, even the discussion of it lowered our credit rating.  And we can't go to that place, I mean, really.

So I would hope that we can have a vote on a clean debt ceiling, that we would do it by the end of July, because this may come due in August, even if it's September we want to be ready, and as you said, remove all doubt, have some certainty as to where that is.  So I would hope that we could work in a bipartisan way.

Now, again, indicative of what is going on in the administration, you have the Secretary of the Treasury saying, we want a clean debt ceiling.

I said President Bush.  I'm sorry.  I meant to say ?? it is hard for me to say it.  Poor President Bush.  I apologize.

Q:  Can I follow up on this? 

Leader Pelosi.  On the debt ceiling?

Q:  Yes, ma'am.

Leader Pelosi.  I started to say about the uncertainty in this administration.  You have the Secretary of the Treasury, Mnuchin, saying it should be a clean debt ceiling, and you have the OMB Director saying he's catering to the Freedom Caucus to put all kinds of things, cuts and stuff, in it.

We're not going down that path.  And if they were to go down that path as a way to lift the debt ceiling in the House, I doubt they could pass that in the Senate.

So let's just be efficient.  Let's remove all doubt.  Let's save our debate for another subject.  This is the full faith and credit of the United States of America.

Q:  So your Caucus would not demand any special provisions in that bill?  You would prefer it just to be clean? 

Leader Pelosi.  No.  No.  No.  Clean.  Clean.  I mean, as I have said before, this is about debts incurred.  It is about things they have voted for to spend money on.  It is about tax cuts they have given, which are tax expenditures, that need to be covered.  So this is about what is already spent or accounted for.  It's not about how we go into the future, except to do so with some certainty.

Q:  You had indicated recently that you didn't want to see a debt ceiling increase that would let them, then, turn around and cut taxes. 

Leader Pelosi.  No, I wasn't clear.  And thank you.  My point was there should be no signal from a clean debt ceiling, that we pass it, that this is license to increase the debt.  It's about the past.  It's not about the future.  So plain and simple, a clean debt ceiling.

Yes?

Q:  Can I ask you – I wanted to ask about spending bills.  Republicans seem to be talking about this idea in the House of passing an omnibus, perhaps, before the August recess.  Is that something Democrats would have interest in or could potentially support? 

Leader Pelosi.  An omnibus before the August recess?  Today is the day they're supposed to have the appropriations bills.  This is a landmark day.  And sometimes that date is missed and we all know that.  But there is at least a view in sight as to where we would go.  They are so far behind schedule it's really almost impossible to see how they could be at that place.

Left to their own devices, I say this as one forged in the Appropriations Committee, that is the culture I grew up in Congress, as well as the Intelligence Committee and the Appropriations Committee, basically over time is as bipartisan as it gets.  Left to their own devices, the Democrats and Republicans on the committee can come to their agreements on their bills.

It is when on high the poison pills rain upon the – some legislative poison pills that we have to get rid of.

Having said that, I spoke with the Speaker a week ago, a week and a couple days ago, about – no, just last Friday.  What is today?  Is today Friday again?

Q:  Yes, ma'am.

Leader Pelosi.   It has gone fast.

That we look forward to speaking with him.  He made the overture and I respect that, that we have to talk about what our top line is as to what our spending limits are as we go forward and how the subcommittees know what their number is so that they can write a bill.

So it's just up to them to get moving.  Everything is behind schedule.  We didn't see – we haven't seen – the President says his – can you believe this, he says his tax bill is moving through Congress?  There is no tax bill.  The appropriations process is way behind.  His health care bill is a job killer and, really, a person killer too, as a matter of fact.

And so it's a mess.  They're a mess.  But we stand ready to – we know how to legislate.  We know how to get appropriations bills passed.  We know how to be respectful of another person's point of view so that we can find our common ground, which we have a responsibility to the American people to do.

Q:  Can I just follow up?  You mentioned that Ryan made an overture.  What was it specifically?  Was it to discuss spending caps going forward for fiscal 2018?  What was the overture? 

Leader Pelosi.  It just said the top line, just about the top line.

Yes, ma'am?

Q:  Back to Comey's testimony.  I was wondering what you thought about his comments regarding former Attorney General Loretta Lynch and his confusion over her request to call the Clinton email probe a matter instead of an investigation.  And also the fact that her meeting President Bill Clinton on the tarmac was sort of his final – was sort of the event that made him decide to make his announcement in July. 

Leader Pelosi.  Well, I respect what he had to say.  That's how he saw the situation.  I don't think – I think that President Clinton was probably paying a courtesy visit.  Two people are in the same place, you say hello.  It was unfortunate, though, because it was misinterpreted as for what it was.  Matter, investigation, I don't know that that's such a big deal.

But I do say about Director Comey that he came through, I think, with great authenticity and sincerity.  He is not a political person, I think this was quite evident, and that's a good thing for the Director of the FBI.

That the President would even ask him for his loyalty is something so far behind the pale.  He's not the President's appointee.  So let's get back to what I said before:  Charm, come to dinner, come to wherever that is, Trump Tower.  ‘Do you like your job?  Can you be loyal to me?  I hope you will do this.'

If you went to the White House and you were invited to the Oval Office, with the President of the United States, the Leader of the Free World, and he told you what he hoped you would do, anyone who doesn't think that that is an abuse of power maybe has never been in the Oval with the President of the United States, especially one who has just cleared the room, because he knew what he was doing was incriminating and he didn't want any witnesses.

Q:  Madam Leader, to clarify that, do you think that he obstructed justice, that the President obstructed justice?

Leader Pelosi.  Well, I think he abused power.  I think there is no question he abused power.  Whether he obstructed justice remains for the facts to come forward, and that is what we want: the facts.  And I hope that our Republican colleagues will not continue to stand in the way of our getting the facts.

Also, we'd like to see his tax returns, because that will, again, help connect the dots here.  And, again, maybe it will all be exculpatory, but let's find that out.  Right now we have to remove all doubt about the integrity of our government.

Q:  Madam Leader, some of us in the media have to take our lumps for saying that the President was under investigation for Russia when Comey yesterday said he wasn't.  Do you have any readout on how we've done and how we can fix things moving forward? 

Leader Pelosi.  Well, there, again, it's about words.  You know, it's all about words.  And the President has to understand this:  words spoken by the President of the United States weigh a ton.  It's not like any word that any of the rest of us would say.  I mean, you have the power of words.  That is what you do.  You know the power of words.  But spoken by the President of the United States, they weigh a ton.

So when they say, ‘Am I under investigation?' ‘No, you're not,' that doesn't necessarily mean your campaign is not under investigation.  And, again, I don't know what the subtleties were in terms of ‘I had the different impression.'

Q:  Well, many of us literally said he was under investigation.  And now it is time for us to say, well, we got it wrong.  And from your perspective, how do we fix that, and how do we –

Leader Pelosi.  We have an outside commission, an independent outside commission that looks into it, and we make sure that public opinion is aware of the fact that this is important.  Because in their lives right now and always what's important is their financial stability.  Why are we not creating jobs?

And how dare, how dare the Republicans and the President to say this investigation into the integrity of our elections and our government is an impediment to our getting our agenda through.  What agenda?  Show us the jobs.  Show us the agenda.  Where are the bills?  They did a bill yesterday that robbed, robbed the middle class, seniors, even our veterans, of financial stability by being, again, the handmaidens of Wall Street.

And as I say, I don't paint everyone on Wall Street with the same brush.  But I do say this, that they are the high priests of the special interests, and they sacrifice everything on the altar of trickle?down economics, tax cuts for the rich, special interest tax provisions in our code, at the expense of working families in our country.

So when we talk about increasing wages and all the rest of that, everything that they do is counter to that, whether they're dealing with OSHA and NLRB and collective bargaining and minimum wage or all of those things, they're all in the negative column for them.  But what's in the plus column is what works for Wall Street works for them at the expense of Main Street.

And I said on the floor yesterday, millions of people lost their jobs, their homes, their financial security, their pensions, the savings for their children's education because of what was happening on Wall Street.  And the very bill to correct that, Dodd?Frank, they overturned yesterday.  And just for good measure, they overturned the fiduciary rule, which only says that financial advisers should take into consideration the well?being of the investor that they are advising.  So just give all the leverage to the other side.

It's appalling.  But it's an opinion, and we have to make that debate in the public mind, and I am confident – President Lincoln said, ‘public sentiment is everything.'  You see public sentiment weighing in on their dastardly health care bill.  Hopefully public opinion – they will understand – not understand – not as many people have seen just yet the personal impact of this overturning of Dodd?Frank.  But if it ever became law they would, and hopefully it will never become law.

But on the health care bill, they do.  Tip O'Neill said, ‘all politics is local.'  I'd go one step further:  When it comes to health care, all politics is personal.  Everyone is an expert on what they need in terms of public policy and personal health and economic security.

So we're pleased so far that we have been able to stop them in throwing 23 million people – somebody said, oh, it is not that many, it is 20 plus 3 or something – having the result of 23 million fewer people having access to healthcare.  Fewer people will have access to health care under their bill than had health care before we passed the Affordable Care Act.  In other words, they are taking us not only back, but back, back.  It's just a stunning thing.

And why?  All of this to give a tax cut to the high end, transfer of wealth, Robin Hood in reverse?  $600 billion from working families in our country going to highest income and corporate interests in our country at the expense of working families.  And just for good measure in their budget they take another $600 billion out of Medicaid so that they can afford their tax cuts and the rest.

So it is a stunning thing.  It's an interesting opportunity.  I, too, wish we could spend more attention on the economic stability of America's families, on job creation, on increasing wages and working conditions, et cetera, and, of course, to save the health security of the American people instead of having them Make America Sick Again and attack the financial stability of America's working families.

Go Warriors.  I'll see you tonight.

Q:  All sports are local.  But all sports, the Warriors, that's personal?  Is that it? 

Leader Pelosi.  I've got the Giants right here.

Q:  Well, they're about – they have a winning percentage of about 0.378 right now.

Leader Pelosi.  They're not good.  But you know what, we have been proud of them historically and they will be there again.  I was at the game last Monday, Memorial Day, you know, against the Nats.

Q:  You were there for the fight? 

Leader Pelosi.  Yes.  I have it on my phone.

Q:  Really?

Leader Pelosi.  I have it on my phone, yeah.

Q:  And so who was in the right, Strickland or Harper? 

Leader Pelosi.  That is a level of politics I won't even get into.  Thank you.

Pride Week.  We're walking posters.  We wear red for the little girls in Nigeria.  We wear green for health care and Earth Day.  We wear – you know, we have a lot going.  It is all in the colors, follow the colors.

Thank you all.

You know what I'm doing?  I'm doing two very exciting things when I leave here.  I am going to speak at the reception for Doctor, I guess is the best title, Dr. [Zbigniew] Brzezinski.  His service is today.  How much I respect him.  He came and spoke to us about the war in Iraq.  I certainly was opposed to it.  He was, too, early on.  And we had the benefit of his wisdom and thinking and his gracious, respectful demeanor when he came to Congress to speak.

Then, after that, I am going to Galveston, Texas, for the commissioning of the Gabby Giffords ship.  Not many women have a ship named for them.  Martha Washington.  That was a long time ago.  And this is like only a few – maybe two, maybe three living women.  One is a question mark for when it was – became a Navy ship.  So Martha Washington, Gabby Giffords, two living women who had a ship named for them.  There are a number, maybe a dozen or so more, for women who were no longer with us when their names were commissioned.

But Gabby Giffords, one of the most courageous, strong people in our country, a supporter of our men and women in uniform in her life and as a member of the Armed Services Committee.  I recommended her to be on the Board of Visitors of West Point.

She married a Navy person.  Being from Maryland and the Naval Academy, I was glad to see that, although I have four brothers who were in the Army, that she chose the Navy for her husband.  And so the Navy will come together tomorrow in Galveston to name a ship for her.

Gabby Giffords, someone who we all take great pride in serving with, but also hold up as a model to young girls in our country.  She's a great person.

Thank you all.  I hope you have a good weekend too.