Speaker Pelosi on This Week

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi who joins us this week from the Capitol. Good morning Madam Speaker. Good morning George. Thank you for the opportunity to be with you today. So I just laid out a pretty daunting list right there. You've called the next few days a time of intensity for Congress. Have you ever faced a challenge with so much at stake? Every time we face a challenge you say it's an historic challenge whether it's passing the Affordable Care Act or other legislation that we passed in the previous administration. It's all the wonderful legislative process that we have. But I thank you for calling this President Biden's agenda because that's exactly what it is. This is the vision of the president and he has said that while he wants to pass the infrastructure bill and we will, that he will not confine his vision for the future to just that bill. That had to be about building back better and building back better has the support of over 95% of our caucus. So when you say Democrats divide it, no. Overwhelmingly, I've never seen actually over 95% of the caucus just about for anything. There are some who disagree and I respect that about the size of the package and so some in the Senate, a couple in the Senate as well. And we have to find our common ground, respectful of each other's views. But this isn't about moderates versus progressives. Overwhelmingly, the entirety of our caucus, except for a few whose judgment I respect, support the vision of Joe Biden and we will make progress on it this week. So make progress, not necessarily pass. You said you have support of 95% of Democrats. The problem is you need 98 or 99% to pass it to pass the bills. And I know you said the infrastructure bill is going to pass, but the leader of the progressive caucus in the House, Jamila Prayapal, is balking. She said on Friday that voting on this bill tomorrow, it's an arbitrary date, adding that more than 50 members will vote no if you first don't have agreement on the broader social investment bill. So are you confident these progressive members going to vote yes, even though she says no? What? Let me just say we're going to pass the bill this week. Uh, I promised that we would bring the bill to the floor. That was according to the language that those who wanted this to brought to the floor tomorrow wrote into the rule. We will bring the bill to the floor tomorrow for for consideration. But you know, I'm never bringing a bill to the floor that doesn't have the votes. And I think anytime you put an arbitrary date, well, remember when the Republicans said they were going to overturn the Affordable Care Act when the anniversary of the Affordable Care Act. I knew right then and then they were doomed. You cannot choose the date. You have to go when you have the votes in a reasonable time, and we will. And I do believe that we will do. First of all, let me just say it's an eventful week. First of all, we have to make sure just chronologically we have to make sure we keep government open, and we will. Second of all, we have to honor the vision of President Biden, and we thank him for his leadership and his courage putting forth such a bold package in order to move forward. We have to build consensus. It's not winners. Losers is bring bring people together, and that's what we always do in the Democratic Party. And what President has put forth will create many, many more good paying jobs, especially in terms of addressing the climate crisis, which has not been fully addressed in the infrastructure bill. It will lower cost for families by lowering the cost of prescription drugs for seniors and health care costs across the board. It will give a big one of the largest tax cuts for the middle class with the Biden child tax credit, and it will be paid for by making everyone pay their fair share. Lower cost tax cuts paid for more jobs for the American people. The question is, can you get everybody to agree to that? If I heard you correctly, you're saying the vote will not necessarily be tomorrow on the infrastructure bill. You're gonna put it up when you have the votes to pass it. You know, it may be tomorrow. It may be tomorrow, but right. But let me just say in order to get the votes to pass it, it sounds like you're gonna need agreement on the broader social investment. Absolutely back. You're right. So that is gonna happen this week as well. Well, that's what we were. Let me just say we're prepared. We're ready. Yesterday, the Budget Committee passed out the build back better legislation at the full $3.5 trillion. So it was the number that was sent to us by the Senate and by the president. Obviously, with negotiations, I have to be some changes in that. The sooner the better so that we can build our consensus to go forward, and we will do that. Uh, the American people need that to happen, and that's the overwhelming for the people agenda. The holdouts in the Senate. Of course, everyone knows Joe Manson, Kirsten Sinema, at least those two. Joe Manchin says 3.5 trillion is way too much, and it doesn't necessarily have to pass this year. Kirsten Sinema says she's not gonna support any increases in income taxes or corporate taxes. Have you made progress on those issues? It doesn't sound like it. Well, Chuck Schumer and I and Secretary Yellen the other day came for in the press event and said that we had reached a framework of agreement. People said, Well, what are the specific? Well, we'll see what we need. We'll see how the number comes down and what we need in that regard. But we have agreed on array of pay force in the legislation. This will be paid for. So when some say, Oh, well, what about inflation? It will be paid for, and that's the beauty of it by having those in our economy and society who have not paid their fair share, paying their fair share. So again, the Senate and the House, those who are not in full agreement with the president's rate. Let's see what our value. Let's not talk about numbers and dollars. Let's talk about values and the values are about. I'm sorry. Is the solution to paying for the carbon tax the array of issues that are there? I'm not. Let's see what we need to have. And there are those who have suggested that. So every when I say we're ready, we've investigated or shall we say, uh, documented everything that we need to be ready with legislative language to go forward. And I'm very excited about the hard work that everybody did. We stayed on schedule. They said you couldn't do it by September 15th. We did. We have our budget committee yesterday, taking the work of the committees and putting it forward. We've been carefully trying to see what could be veritable. You know, we in the house, I'm used to negotiating with the White House or among ourselves and with the Senate. But to negotiate with it, we don't negotiate with the parliamentarian. She will make judgments about something that might violate the bird were provisions of privilege, whatever that is. And that's a, uh, a bath that legislation has to take. So all of these things are in place. We're trying to get them be as ready as possible. We are ready on our side. We just have to see how quickly the parliamentarian can operate. I know the budget committee. I know the budget committee passed a resolution calling for 3.5 trillion, but it sounds like you acknowledge that the final number is going to be somewhat smaller than that. Yeah, I mean, that seems self evident. That seems self evident. And so it's not just, um, we have some, uh, shall we say, birdbath, privilege kinds of things. It's legislation. So the fact is, is that this is the excitement of it all. It's just in real time and exploitation of a few people not in agreement being called the division in the Democratic Party. Everybody overwhelmingly, and I think even those who want a smaller number support the vision of the president. This is really transformative. It's transformative for women. When you think about child care and child tax credit and family medical leave and universal pre K home health care, how much in agreement are we are on that? When you talk about the climate crisis, which we have a responsibility again to the Children, but to our faith to protect God's creation, this planet, how much can we do you want to spend on that? So that adding up what our priorities are should take us to a number where we find common ground. Can we shorten the time or some other things to make this number smaller? That's our discussion now, but we're ready for it. You said you said the government is going to stay open. Are you as confident that the government is going to avoid default because Republicans made it very clear that are not gonna provide any votes? Isn't that irresponsible? Beyond words, the full faith and credit of the United States should not be questioned. That's in the Constitution of the United States. 14th Amendment. So look at that. It's in the Constitution. There's a school of thought that says we don't even have to have these votes, but we do. We as of now, we still do have to have it, and we cooperate on three occasions when President Trump was president in order to lift the debt ceiling, even to have the discussion that it could possibly be in, uh, in default. It lowers are it did the last time lower our credit rating. I said who said it more articulately than Mitch McConnell at the time. You cannot play Russian roulette with the debt ceiling and well being of our economy. So he's willing to eat that right now. Are you confident Democrats can pass it on their own? Well, we want this to be bipartisan. If we didn't want it to be bipartisan, we would put it in the reconciliation bill. That would have been a decision we had to make when we wrote the budget act. But nonetheless, the decision was made that it would always be bipartisan, whether on our part, as we have created in the past with Republican presidents or on their part, it is totally irresponsible. And it's just I would think that the business community would would speak out on this because it has devastating impact on our credit rating as well as global economy. This is a big beyond a big deal. So let's hope that the Republicans will find some left enough of them find some level of responsibility to our country to honor what's in the Constitution that we not question the full faith and credit of the United States of America. They know full well what the consequences are. They preached it when the former president was in office and we always cooperated. It's always been bipartisan and it should be again. Madam Speaker, thanks for your time this morning. My pleasure. Thank you, George.