Transcript of House Democratic Leadership Press Conference Ahead of 2016 Democratic Issues Conference ‘United for Opportunity’

Contact: Drew Hammill/Evangeline George, 202-226-7616

Baltimore – Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and the Members of the House Democratic Leadership held a press conference ahead of the 2016 Democratic Issues Conference. Below are the Leader’s remarks followed by the question and answer session.

Leader Pelosi. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I thank you and your staff, and Mr. Crowley, for bringing us together for a very important Issues Conference at a very important time. You have set the stage for a discussion among Members that is not really only an Issues Conference but it is a workshop – an exchange of ideas between Members and the speakers that you’re bringing to us. You did not hear an array of political speakers, you heard people of ideas, people who are entrepreneurs, people who think entrepreneurially for us to have an exchange with. You have set the stage; Mr. Cummings has set the tone. And I thank you, Mr. Cummings, for welcoming us in such a very important way.

I, too, for many reasons am delighted that we are in Baltimore. I grew up less than a mile from here. I’m glad my grandchild will be able to, once again, visit the old neighborhood – hi, Bella, don’t be shy – not just because it had been my home for so many years but also because this is a working class city. This is a city that depends and recognizes the importance of the middle class and the success of the middle class to the success of our economy. That it’s not just about the middle class but those who aspire to it. And so when we talk about what we come to deal with now, it’s United for Opportunity. Opportunity has the word ‘unity’ in it. ‘Opport-unity.’ So that is really important. Community has the word ‘unity’ in it. And I’m so proud of the unity of the House Democrats. People always ask, “How do you keep them all together?” Our leadership gets that question all the time. It’s not about us keeping together; it’s about our values that draw us together and that we share and that we act upon.

So, this is a very important meeting for us and a very important time in our country as decisions are made as to how many more people can participate in the prosperity of our country, how we address issues in our criminal justice system, how we secure our nation: national security, homeland security, neighborhood security. The list goes on. Others will address them. I’m just accepting Mr. Cummings’ welcome to the city and thank[ing] Mr. Becerra and Mr. Crowley for their leadership in putting together such an excellent meeting. With that, I’m pleased to yield to Mr. Hoyer of Maryland, the distinguished House Democratic Whip.

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Q: Yes, just wondering about – the text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership has been out for almost three months now. You’ve had a chance to review it. I wonder if you could tell us about where the Caucus stands on it. And given some of the differences that Members have had with the President on this issue, have you told him to wait and not try to pass this this spring?

Leader Pelosi. No, the Members are reviewing the TPP – the substance of it. We will have a workshop, a breakout session, Mr. Chairman, under the leadership – well, all of the Members will participate, but Sandy Levin, our Ranking Member on Ways & Means, the committee of jurisdiction, will be conducting that. The President is very eager to have TPP passed this year. What I’ve said to Members is: a vote on fast track is one vote; now, you review TPP in its substance. And we’ll see what the decisions are as Members are studying it.

Q: Do you anticipate, though, having a vote this spring?

Leader Pelosi. I don’t know. I have no idea.

Chairman Becerra. Let’s go across real quickly and see if we can get to as many questions as possible.

Q: Leader Pelosi, a lot of your Democratic colleagues, including some leaders who are standing up with you, have raised concerns about Bernie Sanders being at the top of the ticket in 2016, saying that it could cause a meltdown for some Congressional races. Earlier this week, Senator Sanders again stressed he planned to raise taxes to pay for his plan. I’m just wondering, do you support the approach he’s taking on that plan, and how concerned are you about the fallout for races, competitive races?

Leader Pelosi. Well first of all, let me say that I’m very proud of all three of our candidates: of course, Secretary Clinton, Senator Bernie Sanders, and home grown Martin O’Malley, former Mayor of Baltimore and Governor of Maryland. We need every one of the supporters of all of those candidates to come together in the general election to elect a Democratic President.

The fact is that Bernie Sanders is enlarging the universe and people are paying attention to the election, and we hope that he will bring them to the polls in November to support the Democratic nominee. There are differences of opinion, in terms of approach, but every one of our candidates shares what you heard here – concern about all Americans participating in the full prosperity of our country. I think that what Bernie said was, ‘I’m going to reduce the cost of health care, and it may involve some people paying a tax.’

We’re not running on any platform of raising taxes. We do want to have a fair tax system, and we hope that we can do that this year. But, God bless all of the people who have gotten enthusiastic about all of the Democratic candidates. We expect them to help in the turnout in November, and we hope that all of that will help us win many more seats, perhaps the majority – who knows – in the House and in the Senate.

Q: Just a follow up – his plan does involve increasing income taxes and payroll taxes…

Leader Pelosi. He’s talking about a single-payer. And that’s not going to happen. I mean – does anybody in this room think we’re going to be discussing a single-payer? I’ve been for single-payer for 30 years. It is a very popular idea in our country. But, we have made a decision about where we’re going on health care, and it gives me the opportunity to say how proud we are of it, of Obamacare – if you call it that – the Affordable Care Act, as we named it in the Congress because it has, as Mr. Crowley said, 18 million more people who have access to quality affordable health care, who would never have had – who didn’t have it before – A. B – that it has contained costs.

If there were no other reason to pass a health care bill, if everyone loved their insurance, their insurers, their premiums, their monthly payments – if everybody loved that and the care they’ve received, even then, we would’ve still had to pass a bill to reduce the costs. So, it has achieved the goal of affordable, quality, accessible health care for many millions more Americans. It is lowering the cost of health care in our country. And in fact, as a supporter of single-payer for years before, I made sure that many – all of us made sure that many – of the features that are attractive about single-payer – no preexisting conditions, no lifetime limits, no annual limits – the list goes on and on [we’ve included in the Affordable Care Act].

So, we have, I think, a very realistic plan that is out there. Can it be improved upon? Everything can. But, it’s no use having a conversation about something that’s not going to happen. And again, we’re very proud of the Affordable Care Act. And again, years ago, if we had a tabula rasa – would single-payer have been a route to go? We certainly would’ve considered that. Right now, we’re proud of what we have and want to build upon that.

Q: First, I want to assure you – the New York Times news staff takes no position in your debate. We leave that to the – Mr. Crowley’s friends on the editorial to do that.

[Laughter]

Leader Pelosi. Last night at dinner, we had Denver, and we had – I’m surprised he didn’t bring it up. He told me – I said, ‘Do South Carolinians support the North Carolinians?’ He said, ‘We’re all Carolinians.’

[Laughter]

Assistant Leader Clyburn. Yes.

Leader Pelosi. That’s what he said last night. I was preferring to talk about the Golden State Warriors – that’s what I wanted to talk about. So, what we did discuss was though – how sports is such a unifying factor in our communities. All other differences go by the by when we talk sports.

Q: A question on politics – a less unifying theme. Ten years ago in 2016, you won a robust majority. There was nobody named Barack Obama on the ticket that year. Ten years later, we find House Democrats deeply in the minority, facing a very tough cycle by any measure.

Notwithstanding the policy achievements of the first two years of President Obama’s first term in office, has he done enough for you and your Members politically? How have you ended up in this situation, so deeply in the minority, despite all of the success that you remind us of quite often?

Leader Pelosi. Well, I’m going to call upon my colleagues to weigh in, but I want to say this: I wanted to remind you that our achievements were great under President Obama. We also had great achievements under President George W. Bush because we respected the office of the President. We worked with him, but we disagreed when he wanted to privatize Social Security, we disagreed, many of us, on the war in Iraq, but where we could find common ground, we sought it. We passed the biggest energy bill in the history of our country, did so much for HIV and AIDS. Barney Frank said we passed one of the most progressive bills on low-income tax credit with President Bush. The list goes on and on, and many of the accomplishments – we had with President Bush.

With President Obama, of course, we had a vision, we had some ideas that had been unfulfilled for a while – and so did he – and we were able to come together in unity to pass this legislation. It’s all worth it. It was fabulous. And much of what he is doing now is predicated on what we passed then. We take pride in President Barack Obama. I think he’s a great President for what we have accomplished for the American people. What happens politically is another thing.

Q: Just again – for Leader Pelosi. You met with President Obama yesterday, and he issued a statement afterwards, talking about all of the bipartisan things he wants to do in his final year in office and something like appropriations, fighting opioid addiction, criminal justice reform – these are all sorts of things that are in Speaker Ryan’s playbook and Senator McConnell’s playbook.

Are you at all worried that this legacy building that he wants to do in his final year make take away from your efforts to, sort of, draw a greater contrast with the Republicans?

Leader Pelosi. No, and I’m going to yield to Steny on this, but I would add to that the AUMF. We talked about working, trying to work together in that way. The President did emphasize what we could do in a bipartisan way. That was our purpose in going to the meeting – to accomplish something for the American people. We have plenty of place to differentiate – Mr. Hoyer named some of it, Mr. Crowley others, others have named it as well.

And because our Chairman is holding us to a time limit, I will just close by saying, when you said, ‘Yesterday, you met with the President of the United States,’ it just hit me in a way – and you know, I said earlier, I grew up less than a mile from here in Baltimore, Maryland, in Little Italy. And that you were saying, ‘You were visiting with the President yesterday’ – having this experience and that experience yesterday is almost an emotional one for me. We lived there my whole life. My parents died there. And it’s a working-class neighborhood. People thought when my father became Mayor, we would move. They thought after he was Mayor – well, he was Mayor when I was in first grade and when I went away to college, he was still Mayor. When I was born, he represented this district – Elijah [Cummings] – in Congress. And just to see the everyday needs of people – that’s what we loved there. We loved our neighbors, but it was important to, also, have constant, daily reminders that we had a responsibility to meet the needs of people and that public service was a noble calling.

And so, if our calling is to work in a bipartisan way to get something accomplished for the American people, that’s a higher a priority. Politics is another piece of it. We have big distinctions. Mr. Hoyer is going to speak to that.

Whip Hoyer. Well, I’ll be brief because the Chairman wants to get this started on time. I referenced – the Speaker talks in visionary terms of what he wants to do. I applaud him for that. But as I quoted, having a playbook is not the same thing as having plays as accomplishing objectives. And I do not – and we believe that it is mutually exclusive, that we can come together on areas of agreement, and we think we ought to have agreement.

The immigration system is broken – we ought to be able to work together on a comprehensive immigration reform. I know that’s difficult on their side of the aisle, but I think there are the votes – just as I thought there were the votes for the Export-Import Bank – on the floor. We came together and gave us a path forward on the appropriations process and on funding of government – not what we would’ve wanted, but it was a compromise. We came together on an Education Bill – not exactly what we wanted, not exactly what they wanted, but a step forward.

So we have shown that we can work together in the bipartisan fashion, but that does not preclude us from urging our Republican colleagues to put on the table their proposals. Sixty two times repealing the Affordable Care Act is not sufficient. They need to show what they want to replace it with and let the American public understand the consequences of their proposals. It’s not just enough to have a playbook. So, I think we can do both where we can work together in a bipartisan way. Voting Rights – Mr. [Eric] Cantor, before he left, indicated that we needed to do something on the Voting Rights Act. I think we can get the votes for that if it gets to the Floor, just as the Export-Import Bank. So, we can do both. We ought not to put 2016 on hold in the Congress of the United States. The American public expect and deserve better.

Rep. Luján. Just to heed Mr. Becerra’s call for the 2:30 start, I would say, yes, the President has worked hard, and he’s helping out, again, in this cycle, in a very aggressive manner. But as look to 2016, I think there is a lot more attention on Donald Trump and Ted Cruz with what’s happening with this division and where the damage has been done with – where Donald Trump and Ted Cruz have taken this debate and this argument, as well. So, as we look forward to what the battlefield lays out, now onto 2016, there are more opportunities day by day, and we’re going to get ready for whatever comes in 2016, and President Barack Obama will be there to help to make sure we elect more Democrats across America.

Chairman Becerra. With that then, we will close. Thank you all very much.

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