Despite the bias toward Democrats that some critics believe exists at CNN, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) did not appear too comfortable during a recent interview with one of the network’s anchors.
According to the Daily Caller, Jake Tapper spoke with Pelosi on Sunday about her party’s handling of the latest coronavirus relief bill — and his questions sparked some noteworthy responses from the Democratic Party’s top lawmaker.
“It wasn’t a concession”
At issue was the fact that Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) decided to advance the legislation without including funds for state and local governments. In particular, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) has said his state is in dire need of federal money.
“You and Sen. Schumer made this major concession on the most recent legislation because you—,” Tapper began, according to the Daily Caller, before Pelosi interjected.
“It wasn’t a concession,” she responded, insisting that the missing funds would be made available in a subsequent bill.
Pelosi added that the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act “was always an interim bill” and “that CARES II would be where we would go for state and local, and we will, in a big way,” the Daily Caller reported.
“Just calm down”
Tapper then asked Pelosi if she and Schumer made a “tactical mistake” in handling the matter. “So Cuomo says he would have insisted on state funding in the last bill,” he said, noting that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) “is saying he wants to push the pause button.”
“Just calm down,” Pelosi said in response, according to the Daily Caller. “We will have state and local and we will have it in a very significant way. It’s no use going into what might have been.”
“Impeachment and ice cream”
For their part, some elected Republicans have criticized both Pelosi and Schumer, including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), who told Fox News host Judge Jeanine Pirro that Pelosi “owes America an apology.”
“She has held up every single bill, when it came to coronavirus, that we put forth,” McCarthy said in an interview on Saturday, according to Fox. “The first time she held it up so the [Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee], the Democratic arm, could attack Republicans.
“The second time she held it up for the entire week to get more funding for the [National] Endowment [for] the Arts and the Kennedy Center and try to put the Green New Deal in,” the minority leader added. He went on to accuse her of focusing on “investigations, impeachment, and ice cream” instead of “what we really need to accomplish here,” Fox reported.
But as Tapper proved in his recent interview with Pelosi, it is no longer just members of the GOP who are questioning the coronavirus relief strategy of senior Democratic lawmakers.
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