Transcript of Pelosi Interview on MSNBC’s All In with Chris Hayes

Contact: Speaker's Press Office,

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Chris Hayes. Right now we're up against a deadline. Before the end of this month, people are going to stop getting that additional $600 a month unemployment benefit for the pandemic. For many Americans, that has been the difference between hanging on or falling into oblivion, between eviction and keeping their homes. Unless Congress acts very soon, a lot of those people will be in trouble. So far, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell has mostly been discussing the things the party will not agree to, but Congress is going to have to move fast. The person that Mitch McConnell will negotiate with, if that happens, which it appears like it will, joins me now. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrat from California, welcome to the show.

Speaker, it is great to have you. Let's start on this. I mean, I've had you on this program after you passed The Heroes Act, and it was very clear that Democrats had a position that more money was needed, the economy needed further rescuing. At the time, McConnell said this is dead on arrival. The President's economic adviser said, ‘Eh, we don't need anything further.' There is a jobs number they were celebrating. They are coming around, right? There is going to be another bill and the question is, what is it. Is that a fair characterization?

Speaker Pelosi. Yes there is, and we knew there would be. Because we have a pandemic, A; B, because we have an economic downturn, which will only worsen unless we address the pandemic and we put money in people's pockets and again, support our state and local government, which are three of the pillars of The Heroes Act.

First, they were doing nothing, then it was, now it's $1.3 trillion. We don't think that's enough. Our bill is more than $3 trillion, because that is exactly what's needed. In fact, with what's happening in the schools, we might need a little more for the schools. We have $100 billion to address coronavirus issues in terms of schools opening and staying open, but we may need more.

Chris Hayes. So, right now the two things that I've seen from McConnell and Republicans, they don't like the $600 sort of, you know, pandemic bonus on unemployment because they think it's a disincentive to work. And they want to get people out of the house and into the labor force. And then once they're in the labor force they want to make sure they indemnify their employers from liability for anyone getting sick.

So, it's like you've got to get out there and work, and if you get sick, you're on your own. What's your response to those? Are you open to a liability waiver? Do you want to extend the $600?

Speaker Pelosi. Let me first say, today is the two-month anniversary of the passage in the House of The Heroes Act. At the time, the Leader said – McConnell said, ‘We need a pause.' Well, we've had a two-month pause, and it hasn't been constructive. It's been harmful, and the uncertainty is very stressful to America's working families. That's who we are here to represent.

So, when they make a big fuss over $600, when they were willing to give $2 trillion in tax breaks, at a cost of $2 trillion to the national debt, to give tax breaks to their friends, 83 percent of it going to the top one percent, and they begrudge America's working families, who really do need the money, for $600. They might anecdotally say, ‘Oh, I know somebody who isn't going to work because the $600.' We'll say the saying we had on appropriations is, ‘the plural of anecdote is not data.' The data is quite different. People need the $600. Why would you give the big tax breaks to the high-end and begrudge working families $600?

So, that will be a point of discussion. In terms of the immunity that they want, we're saying the best way to do that is to pass The Heroes Act. In The Heroes Act we have a very strong OSHA provision. The OSHA provision is strengthening even the one that is there now that they're not really enforcing. But if you have a strong OSHA provision that recognizes the danger of the coronavirus and the employer implements it, he has or she has protection, and so does the worker.

So, instead they're saying, ‘You're an essential worker, you have to go to work. If you don't, you don't qualify for unemployment insurance. And by the way, if you get sick you have no recourse with your employer.' I mean, what is fair about that? It's just not fair. I understand the risk. I'm sorry – I understand the risks that are there, but everybody is protected by a strong OSHA standard. The employer if he implements it, the employee because he's safer and customers and clients who may come into the place of business as well.

Chris Hayes. So, that's fascinating. I don't think I quite understood that wrinkle. When we talk about people going into workplaces, and obviously this is huge deal. We're doing with a society wide level with schools – and I want to ask you about that – but people – we don't know what workplaces are safe and how they're going to be redesigned and retooled. In The Heroes Act you're basically saying, the policy is strengthen whatever the OSHA requirements are and have people adhere to them and if they adhere to them then you can't sue them as opposed to this liability waiver that the Republicans seem intent on. Am I understanding that correctly?

Speaker Pelosi. It's not a question of you can't – you can't sue them. You probably won't get sick, first and foremost, because you're protected. But, if you do, the leverage that the employer has – that he's protected because he enforced all of the provisions of the OSHA Act. And that's a much better way to go about this than all of this immunity.

Chris Hayes. You just mentioned schools and I want to talk about that because it's front of mind for so many people. I have to say, talking – you know, I have three children, two are school age, and talking to fellow parents, there's just so much anxiety, consternation, uncertainty. What does the fall look like?

There's a new Quinnipiac poll today that shows the President has a 62 percent disapproval rate on the schools. And your home district of San Francisco announced today it's going to be all remote. What do you think should be happening in schools, and what role does Congress and the federal government have to play to see that it is done?

Speaker Pelosi. Well, first of all, we had the opportunity to see one of your beautiful children when I was here before.

You describe perfectly the angst that many families across America have about their children going to school. I have a granddaughter in public school in San Francisco, so I hear it at home as well. But some kids have more opportunity learning from home than others, and we have to make sure that as we go forward, if kids are learning from home, that they have the food and the technology to do so.

But in terms of opening up the schools, children want to go to school. They want to see their friends. They want to socialize. Teachers, overwhelmingly, would like to be going back to school, as do parents want their children to go back to school. But none of the above want that to happen unless it is safe. And so, for the President to say that he's going to withhold funds from schools that don't open up is completely upside down.

What he should be saying is we're going to pass The Heroes Act, which has $100 billion in order for schools to open up so that they can be safer for children. But, as I said to you, the intensity of the virus and the spread of it is such that we may need more than that $100 billion. And it will be well worth it to protect our children, our primary responsibility. And what it would do is to help with the – the sanitation issues, the training of teachers, there'll be spacing because people have to be further apart, therefore you need more teachers. And there are a variety of provisions that can make it safer.

For example, in the District of Columbia, my understanding is they've decided they're going to go two days a week. First two days for one group of children, third day they clean the schools – that takes money. The next two days a different group of children going.

So, localities will determine how they can cope with it. And it does relate to the intensity of the virus in the community. So these will be local decisions, even within a state of California. We have some differences, but the fact is you need the money to do it. You need the money to do it. And it's, as I say, a small price to pay for the lives and livelihood and the good health of our children, their teachers, custodians in the building, food suppliers and the rest.

There's a way to do it. And you know what, it's a bigger way: open the economy, open our schools. We have that as pillar two in The Heroes Act. Testing, testing, testing. Testing, tracing, treating, distancing, masking, sanitation and the rest.

And what we're calling upon the President to do on this second anniversary – it's the two-month anniversary of The Heroes Act – is to implement the Defense Production Act to call upon industry to supply us with the equipment that is needed. People can't get tested because there's not enough testing equipment. They can in some areas; they can't in others. People can't – it takes a week to get a test back because we don't have the equipment, enough equipment to get those results in a timely fashion that really makes a difference. So in a week, it's probably obsolete anyway. So you have that.

And then we need the PPE. We need it for the schools, for health care workers, the personal protective equipment. We should be all systems go with providing that equipment: PPE equipment, equipment to test, equipment to get the results of the test. And if we do that – and the sooner we do that, the sooner we can open up our economy, the sooner we can send our children back to school as safely as possible. And we have it in The Heroes plan.

Mr. Pallone, the Chair of the Energy and Commerce Committee has a very strategic plan. We've done testing, the first bill we had, on March 4th on the Floor of the House, is testing, testing. We've done it, but they have not implemented it because they're defying science.

And now they want to have the results of the findings to go, not to the CDC and the scientists there, but to the Administration. Shameful.

Chris Hayes. Well, the clock is ticking for your work and I wish all good dispatch and speed to you as you try to work towards this because we definitely need it.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi, thank you so much for your time tonight. I really appreciate it.

Speaker Pelosi. We can't leave the House without it. We cannot leave Congress without it.

Thank you so much.

Chris Hayes. I completely agree. We need a lot.