Transcript of Pelosi Interview on Bloomberg's Balance of Power with David Westin

Contact: Speaker's Press Office,

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David Westin. And now it is my pleasure to welcome the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi. Madam Speaker, thank you so much for joining us.

Speaker Pelosi. My pleasure.

David Westin. I think one of the biggest issues on all of our minds right now is how can we restart the economy and be safe at the same time, as we see the uptick in coronavirus cases in Florida, in Arizona, in Texas. Can we do both?

Speaker Pelosi. Yes, we have to.

You cannot do one without the other, though. You have to address the coronavirus issue, as we have been saying all along. Open our economy, do so by testing, testing, testing. If you test and you trace and you treat and you isolate, you can contain the virus; you can open the economy.

The same holds true for our children going to school. They want to go to school. We want them to go to school, their parents do. Teachers want to teach, but you cannot risk their health in doing so. And, in order to open these schools and the economy, there is a simple solution: testing. It has worked in other countries. Until, God-willing, we have a vaccine or a cure, testing – testing.

Now, what I'm calling upon the President to do is to use his authority to execute the Defense Production Act. People are not getting tested enough because there isn't enough equipment. Those tests are not analyzed to find out if they are positive or negative because there is not enough equipment. The schools are not prepared to open up because they do not have enough personal protective equipment.

And so, we are saying, just face the facts. I said this morning, the President is like a man who refuses to ask directions. There are directions. Scientists are giving it to us.

But we can't fully open up or safely open up unless we address the coronavirus, and it is doable. We are America. We can get anything done we set our minds to do, but we have to follow the science and do good governance as we follow the science.

David Westin. All of the experts, as you say, Madam Speaker, say we have to have testing and then we have to have the contact tracing that follows on after the testing. At the same time, in some places, like Florida right now, some of the experts are saying it is so far out of control you have to shut it down before you can really even test because there's just too much going on.

What can the federal government, what can Congress, what can the President do to try to get people to stay home in some of these places where they need to stay home? You and I both know that.

Speaker Pelosi. Well it is – it has worked in other countries. The shelter-in-place, the lockdown makes a big, big difference.

But the President, you know, it is even hard to get him to wear a mask as a good example. But it would make all of the difference in the world and, really, in not a long time, if the President would suggest and not stand in the way of sheltering in place. The lockdown is very important.

In California, we locked down, had great improvement, everything good, our Governor just – an excellent governor, Gavin Newsom. And then some of the regions of the state – it's a big state – were objecting, saying ‘We do not have so much here, let us open up.' And so, there was some local discretion, which now has demonstrated that discretion has led to more cases, unfortunately.

David Westin. Madam Speaker, you raised the question of schools, which I think is on so many Americans' minds across the country right now as we approach September. Once again, how we can get our kids back to school in some form, maybe a hybrid form, safely. At the same time that will take a lot of money as a practical matter.

Speaker Pelosi. That is. It is.

David Westin. We are going to have to reconfigure a lot of schools. Where is that money going to come from? Mitch McConnell says, actually, he might be willing to put up some money for that. Can you come to terms on that at least?

Speaker Pelosi. Well, in The Heroes Act we have a $100 billion education stabilization fund specifically for the coronavirus, much of it for elementary, for K-12, and then some of it for higher education. Because if you're going to go to school – and, again, we want all the testing, tracing, et cetera, but you have to have the distancing.

If you are going to be distanced six feet apart, which you must, then you need more space, you need more teachers and you need attention to the ventilation system in the schools, as well as testing for not only teachers but custodians and others.

Instead of the President threatening to withhold money from schools that don't open, he should be granting money to schools so that they can open. Our federal share of education is very small, eight-point-something, less than ten percent. Most of that money is funded by state and local governments. That is why we have in The Heroes Act, the state and local government to honor our heroes, almost a trillion dollars so that state and local government can recover from the outlays that they have made for the coronavirus to address it, as well as the revenue lost because of the coronavirus. So, all of that – state and locals is where over 90 percent of our education funds come from.

So again, it is a lot of money, but it is a small price to pay for the lives and livelihood of our children and the need for them to go back to school in a very safe way. There is a path. Ask for directions, Mr. President. The scientists can give you some good guidance in this regard.

In The Heroes Act, we anticipated this – two months ago, yesterday, we passed The Heroes Act with all of those provisions in it about testing, about supporting state and local government, about the states that – the Education Stabilization Fund and other provisions as well.

Since that time, 50,000 more people have died, many more have become infected, so many more people have become unemployed. This morning we had the seventeenth week, the seventeenth straight week of over one million people applying for UI, Unemployment Insurance claims.

David Westin. As you say, Madam Speaker, it's been two months now since the House passed the Heroes bill that is sort of the fourth wave of the stimulus. We have not had any response from the Senate really effectively. We hear Mitch McConnell say he will come forward with something next week. What is it going to take to get the two sides together to get something done? You have the school situation coming up soon, and you also have the Unemployment Insurance, which we're really coming up within another couple of weeks.

Speaker Pelosi. In another couple of weeks that will expire. I have no doubt they will come around. In the beginning they said, ‘No, we have spent enough money.' Now, they're at $1.3 trillion; that's not enough. We have $3.4 trillion.

As you know, the Fed has spent a good deal of money making sure the stock market is okay, one way or another, trillions of dollars, actually.

We think that if we can bolster the stock market that way – and it is a good thing – that we should be able to bolster the middle class, our working families. And again, especially when it comes to spending money on education. Education brings more money to the Treasury than any other dollar you can spend.

A great deal of what we have in The Heroes Act is absolutely essential, like direct payments to people, Unemployment Insurance and the rest, because if we don't do that, the recession will only get worse, the virus will spread further and the unhappiness, the suffering of the American people will intensify.

We can get this done. The scientists have shown us the way. We need the equipment to do it. The President can, with the stroke of a pen, call upon the Defense Production Act, call upon businesses to focus on the equipment for testing, the equipment for judging the results of those tests, the equipment for personal protection, the equipment.

David Westin. Madam Speaker, you say they, the Republicans, will come around, Mitch McConnell and the Republican leadership on the Senate side. Will they do it in time to get this done in the next two weeks? How – what is your level of confidence that we will have legislation out within the next two weeks?

Speaker Pelosi. Well, we're not – let me just say this, we can't go home without it. And so, because of the Unemployment Insurance expiring, the rest of that, we have to have legislation. It's been two months. It's been two months. More people have died, more people have gone unemployed and more people have been infected. What is the value of their waiting?

I mean, I know some people say it is too much money, but as I've said to you before, what we are doing for state and local government is one half of what the Republicans added to the national debt in order to pass their tax scam, which gave 83 percent of the benefits to the top one percent. We are not a caste system. We have to, we have to make sure that we have, as we recognize, a consumer economy, the confidence that people have in order to have money, in order to spend it, to inject demand into the economy, create jobs. That is what we have to thrive on and not just depend on some possible trickle down. ‘If it happens, good. If not, so be it.'

So, anyway, we feel pretty confident about it. And there is a lot of enthusiasm because much of the injustice of it all, whether it is economic, health, education, coronavirus, specifically, it impacts lower income people and people of color in a very disproportionate way. And we know that we must address that. And we must address it, especially now, when there is just a threat to people's lives, their livelihood and, in fact, the life of our democracy.

David Westin. Just in conclusion here, Madam Speaker, as you point out, some of the least fortunate in the country have been hit hardest by the pandemic itself, by the disease, and by the economic aftermath of that. What can you do to make sure the money gets to those people? Because there are various reports that while some of it has, a lot of it has not.

Speaker Pelosi. Well, the direct payments get directly to them, and the Unemployment Insurance does. We think that the PPP, the Paycheck Protection Program for small businesses, did reach a lot of people, but it had collateral benefit to those who should not have benefited from it, so that was unfortunate. So, we have to be very specific in how legislation is written, and not just assume that people will do the right or the fair thing.

But it is – I think what has happened with George Floyd, the hundreds of thousands of people who came out every day, week in and week out for a long time, looking for justice, in that case in policing, but also the coronavirus was a part of that enthusiasm and that exuberance. And so people expect to see justice done. And including environmental justice. That's why we are moving with our Moving Forward legislation, to include so much of green technologies. Because communities of color suffered disproportionately from environmental injustice, clean air, clean water, the list goes on. So, we're – this is about justice.

I am fond of quoting Saint Augustine, 1700 years ago, seventeen centuries ago, who said, ‘Any government that does not exist to promote justice is just a bunch of thieves.' Well, we don't want to be considered a bunch of thieves. We want to promote justice. And in the long run, that makes it for everyone. In fact, in the short run, it does, as well.

So, again, this legislation is lean – I know it is a lot of money, but it is very specific as to what it goes to, honoring our heroes, opening our economy by testing and money directly into the pockets of the American people.

David Westin. St. Augustine. Note a bad lodestar to have.

Speaker Pelosi. Thank you.

David Westin. Thank you so much for spending time with us, Madam Speaker. Always a pleasure. Really appreciate it. And that is the Speaker of the House of Representatives, she is Nancy Pelosi.