Transcript of Pelosi Interview on MSNBC’s The Beat with Ari Melber Hosted by Stephanie Ruhle

Contact: Speaker's Press Office,

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Stephanie Ruhle. We are back with the most powerful Democratic elected official in America, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Speaker Pelosi, thank you for joining us on this very important day.

Yesterday, you knelt in honor of George Floyd and his life and, soon after, you helped unveil the new policing reform bill. This has been fifteen days of impact and now it is time for Congressional action. What do you hope your legislation is going to achieve?

Speaker Pelosi. Well, thank you for mentioning that. I'm very proud of the work of Karen Bass, the Chair of the Congressional Black Caucus. She also Chairs the crime subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee.

So, tomorrow, the Judiciary Committee, under Jerry Nadler's leadership and Karen Bass, will be having a hearing on the justice and policing legislation and what we hope to accomplish is an improvement in justice and policing. And that means we will have an end to racial profiling, choke holds, qualified [immunity], of wrongdoing in the police department, issues that relate to data collection so that we know the record of people and so that they don't get rehired into a place where they can cause more harm, the list goes on.

It is a very important, well-crafted piece of legislation that addresses many of the concerns that our Congress has had for a long time and our Caucus, the Black Caucus is taking the lead on. So, we're ready. Karen Bass is ready to introduce that bill, working with the Senate as well – Kamala Harris and Senator Booker yesterday, to make the announcement.

And as we have the ceremony today –

Stephanie Ruhle. How confident are you that it will be welcomed in the Senate?

Speaker Pelosi. Well, I would hope. Of course, we introduced it yesterday. Today, you had the funeral, the final funeral to – for George Floyd to rest in peace. And, now, we go forward with the legislation.

I would hope public opinion will convince our colleagues that something, something to the effect of what we are putting together, needs to be done. Not partisan in any way and hopefully it's about reducing violence in the administration of justice.

Safety is very important to the American people. Safety is one of our primary responsibilities as elected officials, to keep the American people safe. And we want them to be safe in a very just way.

Stephanie Ruhle. But the Senate can't even pass an anti-lynching bill. If you can't get that through, does this have hope?

Speaker Pelosi. Well, again, Lincoln said, ‘Public sentiment is everything. With it you can accomplish almost anything. Without it, practically nothing,' Abraham Lincoln. I think that public opinion, the massive number of people walking in support of ending violence in terms of the police department, is something that we have to recognize.

And, again, not to paint every one of our public safety officials with the same brush. They don't deserve that, but they do deserve to police – they should be policing their own operation. And, in the absence of that, we will have this justice and policing legislation.

So, it is not up to us to just do the inside maneuvering. You can only go so far with that. The outside mobilization is essential to any change that you want to effect in our country, in the Congress.

Stephanie Ruhle. When you talk about public safety, racial justice, national security, these are issues that matter to all Americans. Yet, the way the President is trying to phrase this, saying these are liberal, radical moves meant to abolish policing as we know it, as though you're trying to create a lawless society. That's obviously not what you are doing. So, when you look at the term ‘defunding the police,' how do you define it?

Speaker Pelosi. Well, first of all, I don't pay that much attention to what the President says because it doesn't equate to – it doesn't have anything to do with the reality of the situation. He is ignoring what we're seeing right before our very eyes, denying it, wanting us to believe him rather than what we're seeing with our very eyes.

The issue of budgeting is one that should be a statement of our values. What we care about should be how we allocate our resources, and we do care about safety. So, we will have various measures that relate to – that could possibly alleviate some of the responsibilities some in law enforcement have that relate to mental illness, that relate to domestic violence and the rest of that, and we are hoping they will pass our legislation that has the Violence Against Women Act in it and the funding that goes with that.

But I wouldn't get hung up on one phrase or another. What we want to do is pass our bill for justice and policing, that phrase I hope everyone will take on, and again, as we allocate our resources, do so in a way that addresses some of the underlying concerns that people have.

In fact, our Heroes Act does just that in certain respects. First of all, some of the anger that you see out there, I understand, is from the disparity in the coronavirus and how people of color have more – a disproportionate share of the deaths in terms of that. The Heroes Act goes directly to that. It says you want to open up the economy, test, trace, treat, socially distance, so that we can get that done. And that – and we want the data and the statistics that relate to who is disproportionately affected by that.

If you want to talk about protecting people, honor our heroes: our health care workers, our first responders, our food suppliers, transit, teachers, teachers, teachers. That is in that bill. And that is something that we expect the Republicans to come around to sooner rather than later. And again, that's three pillars: one, open the economy; two, honor our heroes; third, put money in the pockets of the American people so that people, especially, disproportionately people of color can have the wherewithal until our economy swings back.

And then we have some ideas about that as we go forward. That is to pass our infrastructure bill, build the infrastructure of America in a green way. Have a stabilization of the Affordable Care Act, so they have more access to affordable care. We know that there are injustices, whether it's environmental injustice, whether it's health injustice, whether it's occupational injustice, whether it is education injustice, that have to be addressed and the legislation we have between now and the fourth of July goes right to those points. They're a repeat of what we've done before, but now to double down on them.

Stephanie Ruhle. Do you really think that the Senate is going to go for that? A week ago, it was a nonstarter for Mitch McConnell. And since Friday's jobs report, we have more and more Republicans saying we are going to pump the brakes on another stimulus bill. So, as important as you think The Heroes Act is, do you think your Republican colleague do?

Speaker Pelosi. Well, I just heard today that one of the President's economic advisors said there definitely will be a bill, and the President wants to see what will be in it, as we go forward. Mitch McConnell has changed his tune from never, no way, to maybe just a trillion dollars and later than they want. We want it sooner, and we want it more.

But this isn't about what they think politically. This is what the American people need. This is a very disciplined, focused, prioritized piece of legislation that addresses the needs of our city and states, our local communities for the money they had put out to address the funding for coronavirus outlays, as well as the revenue lost because of the coronavirus. It is very, very important.

In fact, if you want to see how important it is, go to Speaker.gov/HeroesAct. Press any entity in the country, whether it's a state you live in, a city, a county and see exactly what that means to you. And that is our argument from Democrats and Republicans across the country. These states and localities, they have to meet a budget deadline by June 30th. We need this bill to come up very soon. And by the way, all of it. When you look at it, you'll just be dazzled by what it does for states and localities.

When you see it, remember this: it only costs half as much, half as much as the Republican tax scam that gave 83 percent of the benefits to the top one percent in the country. So, this is about budgeting. You asked about budgeting, funding, this or that. Where do you allocate the resources? What is important to a country to meet our goals?

We think there is a better place than tax breaks for the richest people in America. We think state and local government, our heroes, health care workers, etcetera, deserve to keep their jobs. They risk their lives to save other people's lives. We don't want them to lose their jobs in the meantime because of the coronavirus and the loss of revenue that comes with that as well.

So, I think yes, that they will come around on it. I think they will come around on it.

But you know what? We haven't asked them to vote for anything they haven't voted for before. They voted for state and local, smaller, but nonetheless. They voted for testing, smaller, but nonetheless. They voted for Unemployment Insurance and direct payments to people, smaller, but nonetheless.

So, it isn't asking them to violate any principle. We're just asking them to choose the people. The Fed is propping up the stock market with trillions of dollars. We want Congress and the Fed to prop up America's working families with trillions of dollars as well, and we have a plan to do just that.

Stephanie Ruhle. Well, for the millions of people out there marching, they don't want smaller. They want bigger. They want equality and help. House Speaker, thank you so much for joining me.

Speaker Pelosi. Remember this though: if we don't do this, it's going to cost more. It's going to cost more if we don't make this investment now. Thank you. Lovely to be with you, Stephanie. Thank you.

Stephanie Ruhle. Invest now or pay later, the parting words of Speaker Pelosi.