Speaker Emerita Pelosi on MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell Reports

Joining me now, the Speaker Emerita, Nancy Pelosi. The Speaker has not released the text of the aid yet, Madam Speaker. It's so good to have you here because nobody but you knows the ins and outs of House rules as well as you do in House vote counting in either and both parties. But he has not released the text yet, which could create other stumbling blocks. But I'm told in my ear by my wonderful producer, he's just released the text. So our teams on the Hill are going to scramble and go through that and hopefully we can get you some details. But that said, it's going to be separate bills. They could have done this six months ago when the Senate passed it. But now is now they've lost territory. We were both in Munich when President Zelensky said we are now going to be retreating and we could lose. And he's now made it very clear they could lose this war to Vladimir Putin. What's at stake? What's at stake is our democracy. And I want to thank you for the attention that you have paid to Ukraine because of all the things that are going, whether it's in Manhattan courtrooms or in Gaza and the rest so important there. But the attention to Ukraine has been diminished, in my view, in the press in our country. And nothing less is at stake than our democracy. Almost two years ago, I made the first trip. I brought a delegation, high level delegation to Ukraine. We thought we might die because it was very dangerous. Then we saw firsthand the courage and the determination of the Ukrainian people to protect their democracy and in protecting their democracy, to protect our democracy and to fight off the Russians. And so now it's two years later. Right now, they need distance. They need speed and they need heft in this fight. And they can win it. What happened in the Congress of the United States is heartbreaking. It's sad. America, America, the chair of the Republican chair of the Intelligence Committee. And I am told also the chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Republican chair, have said that Russian propaganda has taken over the Republican caucus. You're right. Both, both. Russian propaganda. Turner and McCaul have said that, that that Congress members are spouting Russian propaganda about alleged and completely false Ukrainian fraud and corruption. Totally untrue, which is spewing out from Russian social media. Well, that's an indication of their candidate for president of the United States, as I've always said, with him, all roads lead to Putin. But now we have the possibility of this legislation coming forward. I think splitting it is fine as long as it is understood that it'll come together when it goes to the Senate and it is something that the Senate is consistent with what the Senate has done and that the president will sign as soon as possible, because every day is a matter of life and death in the Ukraine of success or failure in the Ukraine. But it's it's really a tragedy that it has taken this long. But I'm so glad. I won't say glad, but at long last it has happened. The Ukrainians have been remarkable. The countries surrounding it have been taking in refugees, supplying humanitarian assistance and the rest. Those who are members of NATO know that they could be threatened should Putin prevail there. But those who are not members of NATO are really scared. And they've made it clear to us that they have propaganda in their own country coming from Russia as well. And in fact, I was saying to Chuck Todd just a few moments ago that one of the things Donald Trump just said on Friday, I believe, was that no money should go for Ukraine until Europe does something. Europe did $54 billion when this legislation was sitting in the Senate and then sitting in the House. Europe did $54 billion, but they don't have the weapons, they don't have the air defenses and they don't have the ammunition that Zelensky and the Ukraine need. Well, it's just indicative of how irresponsible he has been on this, because he's palsy-walsy for some reason with Putin. For him to say that shows his lack of knowledge, his lack of values and, quite frankly, his lack of commitment to democracy. Another thing that he has been pushing when he met with the Speaker was this repo bill where somehow, miraculously, the U.S. would unfreeze Russian assets here and use that money for Ukraine. Ukraine needs $60 billion, if not more now. And I am told that only $3 billion in total of Russian assets are held under American control, that most of it is in Belgium and some in Japan. So our allies would have to come together and they may, in the G7, put that on the agenda in June. But there's not more than $3 billion total of Russian assets to make that part of this deal. Well, even if it were twice that, you're talking not a sufficient amount. We had always thought, and many of us have said, seize the Russian assets, freeze the Russian assets until we can unleash it to rebuild Ukraine. The Russian assets were for the rebuilding of Ukraine, so they pay for the damage they have caused. Repo is not offensive, if that's a path to getting them to move down the road, OK. But when we were in Munich and met with the leadership there and the chancellor, you know, at the highest levels, they said that this is not a path that they really can follow where, as you said, the real money is in all of this. Now, just handed to me is the fact that the House Appropriations Chair, Tom Cole, and the Defense Subcommittee Chair, Kenton Calvert, and others, subcommittee chairs, Mario Budios Pilar from Florida, all co-sponsoring appropriations bills to follow up on this. So they're ready to move, which is a good sign of some— On the Democratic side. And our leader, Hakeem Jeffries, have been so instrumental in giving us leverage in these discussions. So I think we're going to be able to proceed. How big a threat is it, though, for the speaker now if both Congressman Matti and Congressman Marjorie Taylor Greene try to, you know, vacate the speakership? If he has Democratic votes for these aid bills, and he obviously will need Democratic votes, he can't pass it without them. Well, you know, we come to Washington, we come to Congress to do a job, not to keep a job. I think the—I wish the speaker well. If, in fact, he is going to be at risk in his job so that we can save democracy in Ukraine, that's—any one of us would make that trade, because that is really what's important. So Democrats will support him and put this over the top and stop the motion to vacate? We'll see what our—Hakeem Jeffries, our leader, guides us on this, because he and Rosa are in the discussions. But all the signals are that Democrats will support. Well, we'll see. Yeah, depending on— And it depends. We have to see the substance. When I was coming in here, the message—I had the speaker's letter, which said shortly released. Now it is, and we'll see what that is. And as Mr. Jeffries said, when we see it, then we'll know if we can support it. Now, you have said that U.S. weapons transfers to Israel should be halted after the strike against the World Central Kitchen. No, I said specifically what we said is that we should not be sending those resources and the rest, the money for that, until there is an investigation of how that happened, the humanitarian assault. And there's been a preliminary investigation. And they have an investigation. I myself think there should be an outside, independent investigation. In that vein, I just want to depart from this subject to say that I worked with Bob Graham so much when he was chair of the Intelligence Committee. I was ranking in the House. They had the majority. We did not. And he was such a patriotic American, a beautiful, lovely family person, loved his state of Florida, loved America, was a great supporter of democracy. We were just talking about that and how special a man he was and how we miss leadership like that in a lot of the government right now. And he was bipartisan. That marked his leadership as well. Let me ask you about Israel, though. Do you think that there should be some conditioning of aid going forward once this package gets through, given what's happened in Gaza, the toll and some of the decisions that have been made? As for Gaza, those classifications of hunger and dehydration and the rest is dangerously close to famine, and famine in certain parts of Gaza. We have to have humanitarian assistance to Gaza. Now, what happened on October 7th was barbaric and horrible, horrible. And again, our sympathies go out to the Israeli people for what happened then. But now that we have 33,000 people killed and something we can do something about, we cannot be dropping food and dropping our bombs on Gaza. We have to have the humanitarian assistance in a way that really undermines the onslaught of famine, dehydration and starvation that is happening there. So I think that we have in the package, as the Senate has, they have the assistance to Israel. They have Ukraine. They have Taiwan and Asia. They have things. And they have humanitarian assistance for Gaza. And I would hope that that is in this legislation because it will be very important to pass a package that honors our values as we support our security in Israel. Israel has said it's going to retaliate for the Iranian attacks. And President Raisi in Tehran had new threats today. There was an extraordinary air defense operation by Israel with the help of Britain, France, the U.S., importantly, and even Jordan. I'm going to be speaking to the deputy prime minister, Safadi, who's been a great ally of Israel, but also a great leader in the region shortly in a matter of minutes. But what do you think Israel should do? The war cabinet's meeting again today. They're divided. They've agreed they have to respond. But the president said, take the win, President Biden. Take the win. You've proved your air superiority, your defenses. And don't go after the territory of Iran. Find other ways. Well, the Iranians are villains in the region. We know that they support terrorist organizations, whether Hamas, Hezbollah, and the rest of that. And so the response to their 300 target, 300 firing of 300, whatever they were, whether they were drones, this or that, and the other thing that was withstood by the Israelis is remarkable. But as you mentioned, with the help of some of the members of the G7. The G7 has commended Israel for its leadership in staving that off, happy to help. It has said that Iran should cool it now and they would be willing to do some other things vis-a-vis Iran. But they also said they are working for a ceasefire in Gaza and humanitarian assistance to Gaza. So they blended that together. The president, we couldn't be better served than to have Joe Biden, who knows the territory, knows the personalities, has been a leader in bringing people together. So what would you advise to Prime Minister Netanyahu and his right wing coalition? Well, I think that he I think that the president has conveyed appropriateness. And as we go forward with this, because we all want to help Israel to support its security. That's been in our interest to do so. But we don't want picking fights on this, not picking fights because the Iranians have been totally irresponsible. But don't take their bait. Don't take their bait. And and we have to resolve the issue of Iran in the region, in the world. Israel takes the buck because they have proximity. They have they're more in danger. But they take their having a fight that is one that is global when it comes to Iranian aspirations for nuclear power. Speaker Emeritus Nancy Pelosi, thank you so much. Thank you so much. And thank you for your focus on Ukraine. Thank you very much.