Speaker Pelosi Holds Weekly Press Conference

Good morning, good morning. Good morning, it is today. Today we celebrate 100 days of the Biden-Harris administration. In that time, working together, Democrats have made historic progress to defeat the pandemic and to address the economic crisis, administering over 200 million doses. Imagine, the president had 100 million as his goal, and we've exceeded 200 million shots, delivering over 160 million checks, and putting $1 trillion into workers' pockets. And we've made historic progress to build back better, cutting child poverty in half. Imagine, in the rescue package, initiative to cut child poverty in half, delivering healthcare to an additional 800,000 Americans through the ACA because of the provisions in the rescue package that enabled more people to have access to the subsidies. This is so exciting. I feel very proprietary about the horrible care. And creating 1.3 million jobs, more jobs in the first 100 days than any president ever. All of this puts our economy back on track to grow 6% this year. That's not my figure. That's according to the International Monetary Fund. This is the fastest pace in nearly 40 years. As the president said last night, America is moving. Last night was historic. It was the first time two women, the Vice President of the United States and the Speaker of the House, sat behind the president as he delivered his address to the nation. It sent the message to girls and women that beyond the sky is the limit. We would say the sky is the limit years ago, but now with the technology that we see, there is no limit. The president's speech reflected that message. It's one thing to have two women there. It's remarkable, actually, I say immodestly. But what's really important about the night was what the president said in his speech. It was a triumph for women. Women at home, women in the workplace. Equal pay for equal work. Paid family and medical leave. Affordable child care. Universal pre-K. I love that because it's children learning, parents earning. Men and women, but largely women as caregivers. The Violence Against Women Act that he urged the passage of in the Senate and many other initiatives for women. The list goes on. This address was a recognition that we can only build back better with the fuller participation of women in our economy. So I indeed thought it was a triumph for women. This is an ambitious, transformative vision for seizing a once-in-a-century opportunity to build back better. The bold investments of the American Jobs Plan and the American Family Plan invest in the foundations of our strength. Families, workers, and the middle class. The Jobs Plan is the largest plan since World War II. And the Families Plan will make historic differences for families. The Democratic House looks forward to working with the administration to enact this vision. Congress will work its will. We have many ideas in our caucus and our committees at heart at work advancing the American Jobs Plan and the American Families Plan. Just to go back to the President's address, I mean, we're talking about it, but specifically, he lifted up the progress made by the Rescue Plan, told people what's in it so that they can be sure to avail themselves of the benefits of it and what can be done in the American Jobs Plan. In addition to all of that, he talked about other priorities for our community and, therefore, some pieces of legislation already passed the House or the Senate. The George Floyd Justice and Policing Act that we are optimistic will see some progress in a bipartisan way soon. Gun violence prevention bills, very popular across the country among gun owners and the rest. Just only in the Congress of the United States is there objection, but there is bipartisanship or non-partisanship on this subject across the country. H.R. 1 for the people. This is about our democracy. We must pass this legislation. We have in the House. The leader has called it a priority in the Senate, Mr. Schumer. And then what they did pass in the Senate, and we have to take up in the House, is the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act led by Mazie Hirono in the Senate, Grace Meng in the House. Then we'll take this up when we come back. The Equality Act, ending discrimination against the LGBTQ community. Passed the House, popular in the country. Corporate America, by and large, supports the legislation. Let's just get that done. Immigration reform, as the President called for, Dreamers and TPS, etc. Let's just get that popular across the country in a bipartisan way. Action to lower prescription drug prices. We've been working on this for almost a generation. It's time to do that. If we can pass the legislation to enable the Secretary to negotiate for lower prescription drug benefits, it will be an assist to America's working families. Overwhelmingly, in any poll that you take, the cost of health care is a challenge to America's working families because of the cost of prescription drugs. The Affordable Care Act, we have lowered the rate of increase of the cost of medical care, except for the cost of prescription drugs. These and other initiatives will be addressed by either one of our Houses, as is appropriate, and the House is proud of the progress that we have made, and we are committed to ensuring that these bills become law. So again, 100 days. What a difference a day makes. What a transformation 100 days makes. Thank you, Mr. President. Especially thank you for making your speech, your presentation, such a triumph for women. Any questions? Yes, ma'am. Hi, good morning. And then, second, there has been some pushback, there's been some pushback from the right and the left about requiring social distancing and wearing masks at the same time. Why not consider something like requiring that everyone be fully vaccinated? Why require masks at a time when public health officials are not necessarily vaccinated? Well, public health officials still are encouraged wearing masks indoors. But your question is an excellent one that should be made to every member of Congress. We are guided by the Capitol attending physician and the Sergeant-at-Arms, but the science demands how we can, why we have masks on still. With more, as you rightly point out, with more vaccinations, we should be able to have a shorter period of time for voting so that we don't, if we're all vaccinated, still with a mask inside. But nonetheless, perhaps when we are speaking would be a time we could, as you did, take down the mask. But so far, that's not what we can do. So here's the thing. We cannot require someone to be vaccinated. That's just not what we can do. It is a matter of privacy to know who is or who isn't. I can't go to the Capitol physician and say, give me the names of people who aren't vaccinated so I can go encourage them or make it known to others to encourage them to be vaccinated. So we can't do that. But you would hope that science would guide them to protect themselves, their family members, and be good colleagues in the workplace to get vaccinated. And the sooner that that happens, the better for everything in terms of, because all of the requirements that we had last night were not about security, by and large. That security issue is always there when the President of the United States is present. But in terms of COVID, COVID had us in a room where normally 1,600 people would be gathered for the address by the President of the United States, 1,600 people to 200, I think it was 204 people, because the Capitol physician insisted that that social distancing, that mask wearing were necessary so that we are not contributing to the spread of COVID, especially with the President of the United States there, but also in terms of the Congress of the United States. So if we could, but we can't require vaccinations for the members, much less for the American people. Some people want to say, don't come into my store unless you're vaccinated, this or that, it causes commotion. But we don't have too much. I mean, there are some individuals who say, and I can't even, I don't even know who they are. But if you say there are, that they don't want to social distance, and they don't want to wear a mask, but that's incidental. It's not anybody important. The percentage? It's about 75%. It may be in the last few days, some more, but I think it's about 75%. But again, the physician cannot tell us Democrats, Republicans, or who. And that's right, we should be respecting people's privacy. But that's approximately what it is. And the Republicans come up to me and say, let's shorten the time for votes, let's shorten the time for votes. I said, well, tell your friends to get vaccinated. That would help. That would help a lot. What do you got, Chad? Well, he sits in front. You guys have to just ace him out because he just is so, he's so Chad. I got the Warriors colors on today. No, I didn't because we were thanking the Capitol Police and the custodial staff for making the day possible. So I didn't see it. I usually don't see it. I didn't see it. But the one thing I did hear was that he was ready to continue the discussion about the George Floyd Justice and Policing Act. And I think that was a very good message to come from that. And we're very proud of Karen Bass and the work that she has done in a bipartisan way on the House side and now on the Senate side, working with Cory Booker and Senator Scott for sure, a very important factor in all of this. So that was one thing that I saw on the news that came out. For us, when the president comes, whatever the party, whatever the capacity, it's until midnight. And the president was very gracious in being willing, not being willing, wanting to, suggesting that he say thank you to the custodial staff who suffered so much on January 6th and who continue to make the Capitol work as well as the security. Yes, ma'am. No, I think that we are safe protecting the members of Congress. If people have a disagreement on the charge that was made, then they can appeal it. And that's what's happening. Yes, ma'am. What do you got? You had a question? What's the last part there? What have we, you said, have I chatted with the families? The second part was, who have we designated? Well, I heard that part, but what was the third part? Well, Karen Bass certainly has received my authorization to proceed with discussions, and they will be having a meeting today. She had nearly one year ago, as you know, toward the end of May, George Floyd was murdered in full view. His assassination was something that caused demonstrations, show of support for his family all around the world. Millions of people turned out for days and weeks in some cases, certainly in our country. Beyond the Congressional Black Caucus leadership, it was spontaneous. It was organic. People turned out. And in that period of time, by like the second week of June, Karen Bass introduced her legislation. At that time, when it came to for the hearings, I met with the family. And at that time, they said to me, Madam Speaker, will you name the bill for our brother? It will mean so much to his daughter. And I said, we will name the bill for your brother. We will name it for George Floyd if it is worthy of his name. We then went through the committee process by a month, four weeks or so after the death of George Floyd, the bill passed the House. Nothing happened in the Senate. The bill came up again this year. And I met with the family again in preparation for it being passed in the House. I have spoken to them by phone. Because of COVID, we're limited in terms of actual meetings. But I have met with them in person, but most recently spoken to them by phone on the day. But actually right before the verdict and then after the verdict. So I have been in touch with them all along, though, long before COVID. But in the course of so many other sad deaths, I have met with the moms, many of the moms involved here. And of course, we serve with one, Lucy McBath. She lost her son. She's an inspiration to us in so many ways. And for years, we have been in touch with the families of victims. And we have promised them, in terms of victims of gun violence, that we will never give up until we pass legislation to stop gun violence. And that is part of the tragedy of many of these moms who've lost their children. And some of it relates to need for justice and policing. We will bring it to the floor when we are ready. And we'll be ready when we have a good, strong bipartisan bill. And that is up to the Senate. And then we'll have it in the House, because it'll be a different bill. You know what? We let them have their negotiation. The president, I thought, calibrated his remarks beautifully last night to say, let's continue the negotiation. What do we got? OK. Yeah. Very confident. Yes, ma'am. Excuse me. You're far away. Just a little bit louder. Well, I have been, as I say, almost a generation advocating for enabling the Secretary to negotiate for lower prices. I appreciate your question, because it relates not only to a legislative agenda, but the kitchen table concerns of the American people, which is what our legislative agenda is, how it prioritizes that. So there is big interest in our caucus and the committee of jurisdiction, the committees of jurisdiction, as well among the leadership, that we want to see a path to that. What is in one bill or another is not really what is important. What is the path that we are on to accomplish what we need to accomplish, to do what we said for the people. We would lower the cost of health care by lowering the cost of prescription drugs. We would lower health care costs, bigger paychecks by building the infrastructure of America in a green way. And we would have cleaner government by passing H.R. 1, the For the People Act. Those are still part of our agenda in the rescue package. I guess we call it ARP now, but in the rescue package, we did a great deal to lower the cost of health care for America's working families. I'm so proud of what was done in terms of increasing the subsidies for ACA. So many more people, even 100,000 more signing up in the president's extended enrollment period. And I thank him for that. The bigger paychecks, it's really important to note that if you're going to build the infrastructure of America for the future, it's not just roads, bridges, mass transit, that's all very important. It's water systems, it's schools, it's housing, it's broadband, broadband, broadband, a very significant part of our package that might not have been 10, 20 years ago in a package. Should have been, but it wasn't. So as we go forward, if we're going to build back better, we have to do so with a strong workforce development piece. Workforce development piece, the personal infrastructure must be built in order for the physical infrastructure to involve everyone in its success. And that's why, whether it's women, minority, people of color, veterans, rural, Native American communities, as well as businesses must be able to participate in all of that. So it is the question you ask is one that is very supported in our caucus that we would negotiate for lower prices. When we first did it way back when, and again, you've heard me say this almost every week, in 2005 in our campaign to win back the House in 2006, our 6 for 06 agenda had six priorities that we would pass in the first 100 hours. Five of them became law. One did not, because we didn't have 60 votes in the Senate, enabling the secretary to negotiate for lower prices for Medicare. Now we go beyond that, and that those lower prices would be lower prices in the private sector for America's families, not just those on Medicare. So this is a central issue for us. But we are all, to get back to your question, we are all united around what the president put forth last night. It was an agenda for the people. It addressed their concerns. And he did so extending the hand of friendship so that we could do this, hopefully, in a bipartisan way. But we must get it done. And the shared values that we have in our caucus enable us to discuss our enthusiasms, our exuberances, and see what emerges. And that's called Congress working its will. So I'm proud of every member of our caucus and their ability to weigh the equities in terms of a bill coming down the pipe. Unlike the Republicans who vote against the bill and then show up and take credit. Oh, I voted for restaurants. No, you didn't vote for restaurants to have a grant. You didn't. And so a number of them are trying to take credit for something they did not vote for. And that's not unusual. Vote no, take the dough. That's what the Republicans do. But that doesn't help people. But we're there is to have the courage to pass the laws that hopefully are in a bipartisan way. But if not, to make sure we're meeting the needs of the people. And all of these things will come to the floor, every part of it, when they are ready. And I'm hoping that the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act will be soon. Today they are meeting. I think that's great. I pray, I pray that that that they will be successful in a very strong bipartisan way, bicameral way. Thank you all very much.