House Speaker Nancy Pelosi contended Sunday that despite taking control of the House of Representatives three months ago, the Democratic agenda has thus far been successful.
“We’ve only been together 100 days,” Pelosi responded on “60 Minutes” when asked about accusations she refuses to reach across the aisle and therefore “nothing is getting done”. “The fact that we’ve even passed them in the House is a victory.”
“Let’s figure out the places, figure out where we can find common ground,” she continued. “There’s always been bipartisan support for Dreamers, bipartisan support for gun safety, bipartisan support for infrastructure.”
The comments come in contrast to those of the Republican House leadership, who gathered outside the Capitol days earlier to criticize Democrats’ lack of accomplishments since gaining the majority.
“We are three days away from the 100-day mark of Democrats holding the majority of the House … and you can sum up the first 100 days in three words: radicalism, resistance and resolutions,” Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said during a press conference Wednesday.
McCarthy further noted the House was scheduled to vote on a two-year budget plan, but that Pelosi abandoned the vote after the progressive wing of her caucus demanded more spending on social programs and revolted against the legislation.
Republican Conference Chair Liz Cheney, who also spoke at the press conference, challenged Pelosi in January for opposing proposals that the speaker recently supported as a way to resist negotiating with President Donald Trump.
“It’s very difficult to understand when you’ve got the president’s proposal that obviously includes money for the border wall, also includes an extension for the DACA folks, also includes an extension for TPS. Those are issues, DACA in particular, that Speaker Pelosi, she commandeered the floor of the House of Representatives for eight hours less than a year ago on particularly this issue of helping to ensure that people that are here, the so-called dreamers, are not deported,” Cheney said while discussing Pelosi’s refusal to reach across the aisle to secure a funding bill.
“For [Pelosi] now to simply reject out of hand when the president actually has said, ‘Okay, let’s look at ways we can come closer,’ it shows you they’re just not interested in negotiating,” the Wyoming congresswoman continued.
Pelosi told Lesley Stahl “We just started. We just started,” when asked again why nothing is getting done in the House. “We’re three months since we were in office.”
“Hey, may I introduce you to the idea of the power of the speaker is to set the agenda,” she said. “We didn’t have a speaker who would bring a gun bill to the floor. We didn’t have a speaker who would bring a dreamers issue to the floor. We do now and that’s a very big difference. The power of the speaker is awesome, awesome.”
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