As we reported earlier this month, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said the quiet part out loud during her December 4th press conference about her newfound willingness to cut a deal on a smaller COVID relief package with Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY).
She snapped at reporters who asked about it at the time, stating that the impending availability of the vaccines as well as the media declaring Joe Biden the winner were “a total game-changer.”
“It’s what we had on our bills. It’s for a shorter period of time but that’s OK now because we have a new president,” Pelosi remarked. “A president that recognizes that we need to depend on science to stop the virus.”
In a nutshell, she had all but outright admitted that she wanted to wait until after the election when presumably Joe Biden would be declared the winner of the presidential race.
When CNN’s Manu Raju asked her at that same presser whether or not it was a “mistake” to not accept a smaller bill months ago when she had the chance, the House Speaker got snippy again, noting it was a calculated decision on her part to delay an agreement on the bill until after the election and that she was not ashamed of the decision.
Raju has continued since that time to be a pit bull in trying to get Pelosi to give more direct answers on the call she made to delay compromise on a COVID relief bill as well as the “sticking points” she has this time around, but she’s been continuously dodging him, even during her weekly press conferences where there are only five total reporters in attendance.
Here’s what he said about an attempt at questioning her back on the 10th:
Tried to ask Pelosi why not agree to set aside sticking points on covid talks – as McConnell suggested – but she wouldn’t take the question at her presser
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) December 10, 2020
This morning, Raju decided to take to the Twitter machine to call her out publicly for repeatedly ignoring his questions:
Pelosi wouldn’t answer my question about why the $900 billion deal is more acceptable to her than the $1.8 trillion offer Mnuchin made to her this fall.
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) December 21, 2020
Pelosi wouldn’t call on me at the press conference, which is becoming a pattern, even though just five reporters were there. She left the press conference as I asked her the question. And she ignored my question in the hallway as well.
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) December 21, 2020
Asked again in the hallways why this proposal is more acceptable than the Mnuchin plan, Pelosi didn’t respond. But Schumer, who was walking with her in the hallway, said: “Ask Mitch McConnell.”
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) December 21, 2020
It’s true that McConnell and Senate Republicans objected to Mnuchin’s $1.8 trillion plan, but so did Pelosi, who said in October: "This proposal amounted to one step forward, two steps back.”
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) December 21, 2020
And to think we were all told by Democrats and even some journalists about how relations between Democrats and the media would be peachy keen again with no issues in the event Biden was declared the winner.
McConnell has been a proponent of a more targeted, smaller relief bill from the start. Pelosi never has. That said, Republicans in the Senate showed more of a willingness to compromise throughout this process leading up to the election than Pelosi did. The reasons why she did so were very clear at the time, even though she didn’t cop to them until after it was safer politically for her to do so.
As I’ve said before, Pelosi should not ever be let off the hook for the shameless stunt she and other House Democratic leaders pulled. How many Americans lost their jobs and homes because of the deliberate actions of House Democrats? How many starved, gave up hope, committed suicide? These are questions that will never get asked of her by members of our esteemed press because the reasons why they’d be asked would again expose that the real reason they did so is because they hoped it would hurt Trump at the ballot box and help Joe Biden.
I don’t have much use for most of the “reporters” at CNN, but I’ll give some props to Raju here for not letting Pelosi slide on her 180 on this bill. Wolf Blitzer also gave her the business about her stall tactics on the bill a couple of months ago, which just again proves the old adage about how even a broken clock is right twice a day.
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