Transcript of Pelosi Weekly Press Conference Today
Washington, D.C. – Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi held her weekly press conference today in the Capitol Visitor Center. Below is a transcript of the press conference:
Leader Pelosi. Here we go. We are into this week before we leave for the Fourth of July break. What a wonderful holiday that is, the birth of our nation. Of course, we were all thinking about it yesterday when we celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act. I, at that time, quoted Lincoln quoting the Declaration of Independence and the Gettysburg Address. Lincoln, it is interesting to note – he didn't go back to the Constitution, he went back to the Declaration of Independence. Anyway, we have a lot to celebrate.
So sad, though, that we celebrate the passage of the Civil Rights Act 50 years ago – honor Dr. Martin Luther King and Coretta Scott King – and we ignore passing the Voting Rights Act. It is just one of the items on the agenda that we will ignore as we leave for this break. It has 100 cosponsors; it's bipartisan. It reacts to, actually, the Supreme Court: today is the one-year anniversary of the Supreme Court making its destructive decision to weaken the Voting Rights Act. We shouldn't be leaving for the Fourth of July. We shouldn't be celebrating the Civil Rights Act's passage without passing the bipartisan Voting Rights Amendment Act.
Another bill we're not passing is having an anniversary this week. Friday marks the one-year anniversary of the Senate passing a bipartisan immigration bill that, again, would secure our border, protect our workers, unite our families, and provide a pathway to citizenship. In that year, we've seen no action from the positive side for passing an immigration bill. As I have said to you before, I am confident that the Speaker is of good heart and good mind on this subject, and we hope that we will be able to do something soon. We'll be talking more about that, Senator Reid and I, in the rest of the week.
Another unfinished business as we leave – another piece of unfinished business is the UI, the renewing of UI. Today, House Democrats, led by Dan Kildee and Steven Horsford, will introduce legislation taking up the new bipartisan legislation, mirroring what is going on in the Senate, to extend unemployment insurance. And, hopefully, we believe that that will be a bipartisan effort in the House, as it is in the Senate.
So what do we have? No Voting Rights Act, no immigration bill, no extension of UI, no serious jobs bill as we leave. And one jobs bill that they could pass – it has strong bipartisan support – is the reauthorization of the Ex-Im Bank. This is – it's silly. This is about thousands of small businesses. It's about over a couple hundred thousand jobs at stake, unless we reauthorize the Ex-Im Bank. You'd think that would be one place – we want to have a positive balance of payments. We want to grow our businesses in the United States. We want small businesses to thrive and have markets abroad. This is at no cost to the taxpayer. And, yet, we have this delay.
So there we are. Instead of doing any of this, the Republicans are on the floor passing more giveaways to Big Oil and special interests. We would like them to take action in a bipartisan way to get the job done for the American people – to create jobs, to protect voting rights, to have comprehensive immigration reform, and to pass unemployment insurance extension, just to name a few for this week. Easily done, bipartisan, support in the Senate, if not passed already in the Senate.
Any questions?
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Leader Pelosi. Yes, sir?
Q: Madam Leader, you had said when the House sued to enforce the Defense of Marriage Act that it was a waste of money.
Leader Pelosi. Yes, it was.
Q: And now, apparently…
Leader Pelosi. Totally.
Q: …the Speaker is contemplating suing the White House to enforce laws that he says that the Administration is selectively enforcing or selectively waiving from. What do you make of that effort?
Leader Pelosi. I make of it as subterfuge. As I've said, they are doing nothing here, and so they have to give some aura of activity. The action taken by the House Republicans to defend DOMA wasted over $2 million – how much was it all together – $2.3 million of taxpayers' money. Usually something like that would have some level of bipartisanship. But it was straight party lines, three Republicans versus two Democrats: "We're going to defend DOMA."
We knew it was a waste of time. You know why? Because they knew DOMA was unconstitutional from the start –from the start. Why else would they have passed a bill in '05 or '06? Before we had the majority, they passed a bill in the House that said that DOMA – it was a court stripping bill that stripped the court of judicial review over DOMA. Because they knew it was unconstitutional. They did not want the Supreme Court to have the authority to rule on its constitutionality. So they knew it was unconstitutional, but they were doing their politics, and they were spending the taxpayers' money, at a waste. And here we go again, with – I don't know that the Speaker has decided that. He said he's consulting legal authorities. Is that the word? Experts? Whatever. I hope not.
But, again, it is a subterfuge. Whatever the subject happens to be of the week, you can just go on the internet and you can see what they're screaming about there, you know there will be a reflection of it here. So, in any event, there really needs to be an adult in that room of the Republican caucus. I hope the Speaker is that adult. I trust that he is. I have great respect for the Speaker. Yes, sir?
Q: Madam Leader, as we near the end of the Supreme Court session this year, or the term this year, there is some quiet talk among Democrats and liberals about what is the future of the Court, and it always turns to: Are there going to be any retirements? The dean of the UC Irvine School of Law issued a public appeal to Ruth Bader Ginsburg a while back to retire, so President Obama could appoint someone to fill her legacy. Do you believe that there is a worry that, if there are no retirements at the end of this term, that the Court is in jeopardy of switching hands if the White House is won by a Republican?
Leader Pelosi. Well, switching hands – the Court's in a bad place as it is. But I have every confidence in Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She is one sharp Justice. And I think it's inappropriate, frankly, for whoever that is to be calling upon her to say you should move so that the President can appoint someone else. I do hope that – I mean, what I would like to see is more fairness in terms of approving Justices. Can you just imagine, if we had a vacancy on the Court, how long it would take to get a Justice approved with the opposition and obstruction of the Republican Senate?
Q: Wouldn't it take even longer, though, if Republicans happen to win control of the Senate?
Leader Pelosi. Oh, they're talking about winning control of the Senate? No, I thought you meant if we lose the White House, which I completely do not subscribe to. No, I…
Q: But even Justice Stevens said that Justices should keep in mind who comes after them. Why is such a conversation inappropriate, to sort of wonder why…
Leader Pelosi. Well, then just say it in general. I don't know why they would target one person. But I will say this: If they want to talk about the Court, why don't they talk about what the Court did in 2000 to usurp the power of the people in terms of voting for President of the United States? Why don't they talk about what the Court has done in terms of Citizens Unitedto allow special interests to suffocate the airwaves with endless unreported money? There are a lot of things, when you say you want to talk about the Court, that we could talk about. I don't know why they would target one person in that way.
Yes?
Q: So we've heard a lot about – this might be one of the things we've talked about, them screaming about on the Internet – about the IRS issue here. One issue, and we've from a lot of Democrats who've said: "Well, this is just partisan. This is an attack on the Administration. There is not any, you know, evidence of wrongdoing," as the IRS Commissioner said yesterday. But the Archivist of the United States testified at yesterday's hearing, a nonpartisan individual, that there did seem to be a problem here. Do those criticisms that this is partisan from the Democratic side hold water when the Archivist comes in and says something to the contrary?
Leader Pelosi. Well, you remember when President Bush lost how many millions of emails? It happens. And I'm sorry, I just wasn't familiar with what happened with the Archivist yesterday, but I understand there's a process where all this goes there. I will just say this: my experience, whether it's with what happened at the VA, what happened with the rollout of the healthcare bill, the federal government needs work on its technology. I said last week, they turned over 750,000 pages of information, tens of thousands of emails and the rest. So I – and the characterization in the traffic is that they were only targeting conservative groups, and that's simply not true.
So that's why I think the characterization of the charges against the IRS are political, because they're misrepresenting who was the target of the investigation. It was everybody who is engaged in those (c)4s, and most of those are conservative. Yes, sir?
Q: Madam Leader, how would you grade the administration's performance in handling this crisis on the southern border involving unaccompanied children from Central America?
Leader Pelosi. How would I grade their performance? I think their performance has been according to the law.
You know, there was a law passed in 2008, the William – was William his first name? The Wilberforce Law, which was about protecting unaccompanied children. It was an anti-trafficking piece of legislation. And that called for when these unaccompanied children came across the border, that they would be received by Department of Homeland Security, held for 72 hours only, turned over to HHS. And that's exactly what is happening.
I believe it is – unfortunately, there are some who are using it as an anti-immigration reform, kind of, piece of rhetoric but the fact is that this is what the law is. Now, are there people who are exploiting the law by saying: "Come north and you will – you know, you won't be turned back?" No, the Administration has turned back children who are here with adults or adults who came in under that same, shall we say, auspices and sending them back. So I think they're complying completely with the law.
What we have to do is to make sure that in Central America – because that's where most of these children are coming from, these people are coming from, some with adults – that the message is clear: When you go there, you're going before a judge, you may be sent back. If you're using some coyotes, those sell transit from one country into our border, they're saying that you can come and stay because of DACA, the Deferred Action initiative that the President put forth, they aren't here. That already had a date on it. So I think it's really important for the people in Central America to understand: don't come.
Now, it's a sign of also what's unfortunate in Central America in terms of violence – some of it springing from terrible economies – that these parents have thought it's better for my child to go across the desert, across Mexico, and into the United States; that that would be safer than staying at home in, whether it's Honduras, Guatemala, or El Salvador.
So it's a terrible situation, but I think the Administration is handling it specifically according to the law. Vice President Biden was there and told them, don't come unless you fit into a certain category. But, nonetheless, these people have come. They will be sent back if they don't meet the criteria of the Wilberforce Act to protect kids coming into the country to avoid trafficking. And that was really the main point. It was signed by President Bush. And the President is obeying the law. So I think they've done a fine job.
It's a terrible situation. It is a tragic humanitarian crisis. And there is an exploitation by some of our good intentions, and that distinction is being made by the administration.
Yes, ma'am?
Q: Do you think the surge of children across the border will make Obama less likely to use an executive action later this summer to halt more deportations?
Leader Pelosi. They're completely two different issues. I know that there are those who will try to use that issue as, well, see, they're coming here because the President may be employing prosecutorial discretion in terms of making judgments about who should be deported. But they're completely two [different issues]: one is a humanitarian issue of these children coming.
And some of them, naturally, they don't speak English. Some of them don't even speak Spanish; they speak their indigenous language.
And so we have to recognize that challenge for what it is. And I think it's irresponsible for some to try to frame it in a way that has anything to do with the other issue, which is prosecutorial discretion on deportation. But it's understandable, simply because of location.
People don't understand what the basis of the law is and what these numbers are. You know, it was, what, 29,000 last year? Could be 70,000, 80,000, or more this year. And there's a cost to it, too. There's a cost to it, too. And part of the cost is enforcement to make sure that these people have their trial date, that they have their due process, and then, if necessary, if they don't qualify, then they are sent home.
But I'm telling you, this is really a tragic humanitarian situation at the heart of it. I don't think that coyotes should exploit it. I don't think Republicans should exploit it.
Yes, sir?
Q: Yes, Leader Pelosi, up in the Financial Services Committee, there is a lot of criticism of the Export-Import Bank today. Do you think this is an issue that has been taken hostage by the leadership struggles in the Republican Party in the House? And what's your strategy to try and push it through?
Leader Pelosi. Well, on this subject, way back when, I was the Ranking Member on Foreign Ops, and we funded and authorized – well, we authorized it in the authorizing committee, but – the Ex-Im Bank. It's a really important part of our increasing our exports, which is an important part of our foreign policy: promoting democratic principles abroad, yes, but, in this case, promoting our products abroad.
It had been bipartisan. There's always been a little element in the Republican Party that wasn't in favor of the Ex-Im. But this, right now, for Republicans to say they're not going to authorize it: either they don't understand trade, our role in the global economy, the fact that this doesn't cost the taxpayers any money. They call it corporate welfare and they engage in corporate welfare with every breath they take around here. So, all of a sudden, they're focusing on our exports.
Yes, I think you're right, it probably has something to do with the leadership in the Republican Caucus.
Q: I mean, is that why Majority Leader-Elect McCarthy has had a change of heart?
Leader Pelosi. You'd have to ask him. You'd really just have to ask him. But I think that his statement really struck a blow, and all of their friends in corporate America and on Wall Street, 800 and some of them sent a letter to the Republicans saying, reauthorize this bill. And you see that 41 or 42 Republicans have signed a letter asking for the multiyear reauthorization of the Ex-Im Bank. So that's responsible.
The votes are there. We could pass this and end this. It's over 200,000 jobs in our country. Thousands of businesses benefit from it. And even one of their own Members who signed the letter had had a small business before and said, they probably just don't understand how this works.
Q: But what can Democrats do, though, to – I mean, obviously, it's got to be brought up by the leadership, and the new member of the leadership is [interrupted]
Leader Pelosi. Well, the Speaker is the Speaker. The Speaker has awesome power, you know, to bring anything to the floor. And, again, 199 Republicans voted to default on the full faith and credit of the United States of America, but the Speaker allowed the vote to come to the floor. Twenty eight Republicans, 190 some Democrats, we honored the full faith and credit of the United States of America.
I could give you many examples of that, whether it's violence against women, whether it's opening up government after they shut it down and overwhelmingly voted to keep it shut down; still, the Speaker allowed it to come up.
So this should happen. They should bring it, get it over with, get it done.
Yes, ma'am?
Q: Leader Pelosi, you've been criticizing the Speaker's possible lawsuit on Executive authority, but many of your Democratic colleagues have been publicly pushing the President to use his Executive powers on the issue of immigration. Is it appropriate for the President to unilaterally decide immigration policy if he can't get what he wants in a divided Congress?
Leader Pelosi. No, I don't know why you put those things together. The Republicans are saying they want to sue the President for not upholding the law. The President is looking at what his discretion is to use an Executive act of the Administration.
Now, he hasn't come anywhere near what Republican Presidents have done on Executive orders. But he will act within his discretion for whatever it is, whether it's prosecutorial discretion used to make judgments about who should be deported or not and whatever else. He works closely with his lawyers on that subject.
I think that there are broader interpretations of the law than his lawyers conclude many times. But I don't equate – the Republicans make this project to criticize the President on Executive Orders and are criticizing that as inconsistent with saying the President has a right to do what the law allows him to do.
You see what the Republicans – you know what they have used as some of their examples, with what they call the ENFORCE Act on the floor. They have said that two of the reasons why you could sue the President for not enforcing the law is the issue of DACA, the deferred action for the kids. That is very popular across the board. They call that – that one of the bases to sue the President. Another one was prosecutorial discretion. Well, any prosecutor should have discretion as to making a judgment about who comes, who stays, and what their culpability is.
So not only have we not passed an immigration bill, they have used the President's actions to protect some vulnerable parties as a basis to sue the President. And now Mr. Issa has a [letter calling for the deportation of] all of the children who came here when they were little, all of the DACA kids.
And that isn't a reflection of the Republicans in our country. I mean, overwhelmingly, over 70 percent of the people think we should have comprehensive immigration reform, and most of those think it should have a path to citizenship. So to say they're going to deport, this is sad.
You know, America, we celebrate America and the Fourth of July and the rest. We have to remember that our greatness springs from the fact that we are a nation that is constantly reinvigorated with newcomers. This is a country that talks about family values, about making the future better for the next generation: family values, community values, work ethic, and the rest. And that's exactly the invigoration that newcomers bring to America to make the future better for their families. And when they do so, they make America more American.
I don't know if these people were all sprung from the head of Zeus or maybe they're all Native Americans, bless their hearts. But somebody came from someplace for them to be here right now, but you never know it to hear them talk.
So, no, I completely separate the two subjects that you mentioned. One is subterfuge; let's just mess around so we don't have to answer for our performance to create jobs and meet the needs of the American people.
But, again, that's their right to criticize. But it does not mean that we should not encourage the President to use all the power at his discretion to respect people when they come to our country. Even President Bush, he was so great on immigration, President George W. Bush. He had cautioned in this debate to be respectful of the people that we are talking about. That's really not what's happening right now.
So it's interesting. These issues, they blend, I grant you, that they blend, because people mention them in the same context. The issue you bring up blends with the immigration issue because it's at the border but it's two different laws that are involved, that exist, that we're talking about.
So I hope you have a good Fourth – it's so long. I mean, why are we off next – I mean, Fourth of July is a long way off, but I hope you celebrate the birth of our country in a great way.
And I wish, I really wish so much, that we could be leaving having passed the bipartisan Voting Rights Act. It would've been an appropriate celebration of the civil rights bill, and it would be a necessary antidote to the destructive actions of the Supreme Court of the United States, to name another concern that I have about the Court.
Thank you all very much.
Q: Did you see the video that went around the Internet yesterday of you, Reid, McConnell, and Boehner at the gold medal ceremony? And what did you think of it?
Leader Pelosi. Somebody told me it was and somebody flashed it in front of my face. Is it the one where we're singing "We Shall Overcome"?
Q: Right.
Leader Pelosi. Well, what's to think? You mean that I was smiling and singing and –
Q: You were smiling and singing, but the others didn't seem to be smiling and singing.
Leader Pelosi. Well, maybe they were being pulled too tightly, I don't know.
Anyway, I just loved yesterday. I just thought it was the best thing, really, because it brought so many things together about our country.
And as I mentioned in my remarks, which I'm sure you paid great attention to, here we were sitting there, and behind us was Reverend Martin Luther King Junior, his bust, and then right in front of us at the other end of the rotunda was Abraham Lincoln. Here they were looking at each other. And here we were in between, some of us really celebrating, others trying to ignore the issue of the Voting Rights Act, but also that Lincoln and Reverend King are neighbors on the Mall. Isn't that just a remarkable thing?
Think of what President Lincoln would think, think of what Reverend Martin Luther King would think if they saw at the dedication of the King Memorial Barack Obama presiding at that dedication. What a remarkable thing for our country.
Happy Fourth of July. Thank you all.