Pelosi looks to seize Trump’s bully pulpit
By HEATHER CAYGLE and SARAH FERRIS, Poltico
04/14/2020
As President Donald Trump beams into American homes with his daily coronavirus briefings, Speaker Nancy Pelosi has decided the best way to counter him is to be everywhere — even if that means doing so from her San Francisco kitchen.
Almost daily, Pelosi pops up on one network or another — even cycling through the late-night talk show junket — dropping in for interviews from a computer propped up on a dining room table that sits just off her West Coast kitchen.
“He has the bully pulpit and that’s a good thing for a president to have. It’s a bad thing for the health of the country if the president is not speaking truth,” Pelosi said in an interview. “Our purpose is really to say how do we follow the science, the evidence, the data … that will take us down from this.”
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And as a top negotiator in those trillion-dollar talks, Pelosi has worked to hold the line against Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, demanding to go bigger even if it meant delaying a deal for days as unemployment numbers and political pressure increased.“When you’re in a war, your first priority is force protection, protecting the troops. Our front-line workers need the equipment they deserve,” Pelosi said of the ongoing negotiations on a private call with her caucus on Monday, according to multiple Democrats.
Pelosi lashed Trump for talking about rushing to reopen the economy — possibly as soon as May 1 — without evidence that the virus will have abated enough to ensure Americans are safe.
“During this period of reflection and the rest, I am really very afraid of what the president may do. He’s not learning from his past mistakes,” Pelosi told Democrats on the call. “He’s talking about reopening — and on the basis of what?”
Congressional stalemate deepens as Pelosi, Schumer say they won’t budge on coronavirus funding demands
By Erica Werner, Washington Post
April 13, 2020
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer said Monday that they won’t agree to the Trump administration’s insistence on more money for small business loans unless their demands are met for additional funding for hospitals, state and local governments and food stamp recipients.
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Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Schumer (D-N.Y.) also rejected suggestions from President Trump that the country could reopen quickly, saying “there is still not enough testing available to realistically allow that to happen.”The back-and-forth between Mnuchin and the Democratic leaders on Monday followed a Saturday statement from congressional GOP leaders in which they, too, rejected the Democrats’ demands and showed no interest in negotiating.
The developments appeared to harden a stalemate on Capitol Hill over how or when the federal government will take further action to address the worsening economic impacts of the coronavirus, with millions newly unemployed and much commerce in the nation at a virtual standstill as the U.S. confronts recession conditions.
She should hang tough because Republicans are desperate to avoid a declining Economy headed into November even though at this point it’s inevitable. Also they’ve already started to cheat on Phase 3, why indulge them? Clawbacks and restrictions! More Aid to States to shore up Budgets and to the Poor who don’t have any money and can’t get any.
‘Almost sinful’: Pelosi skewers Trump over threats to reopen country too soon
By SARAH FERRIS and HEATHER CAYGLE, Politico
04/13/2020
Speaker Nancy Pelosi lashed President Donald Trump during a private call with her caucus Monday, saying he was putting Americans in grave danger if he rushes to reopen the economy at the end of this month.
Pelosi sharply criticized Trump’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak, telling Democrats it was “almost sinful” how his administration had failed to live up to promises to make testing available to all Americans and quickly address the mask, gown and glove supply shortage in hospitals across the country.
“The more misrepresentations he puts out there, the more it obscures the truth,” Pelosi told Democrats, according to multiple sources on the call. “We have to insist upon the truth — what they’re saying is not knowledge, is not facts, is not real.”
Pelosi returned to her criticism of Trump multiple times during the two-hour call, saying without a plan for adequate testing and contact tracing, it would be impossible for the president to guarantee Americans a safe reentry into their normal life.
The California Democrat said it was up to Democrats to speak out about the administration’s missteps, calling the lack of national testing and protective equipment for medical providers months after the first U.S. coronavirus case “a complete failure.”
“And we cannot let them lie about it,” she added, according to Democrats on the call.