Transcript of Pelosi Press Conference Today

Contact: Drew Hammill, 202-226-7616

Washington, D.C. – Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi held her weekly press conference today alongside the newly announced Democratic Ranking Members of the 114th Congress. Below is a transcript of the press conference.

Leader Pelosi. Good morning. Good morning, everyone.

I'm very honored to be standing here with the full array of our Ranking Members for the House Democrats. As you can see, there is a crowd of the leadership that is demonstrated here.

As you know, I have taken great pride in saying that our House Democratic Caucus is a majority of women, minorities, and LGBT community members. I'm also proud to say that that is the same when our Ranking Members come to the table, as is self-evident to you here. It's not, though, to say to the American people: everyone in our country, recognizing our beautiful diversity, has [just] a voice in Congress. Not only do they have a seat at the table, they have a seat at the head of the table in each of their committees.

So I'm very proud to be standing here with Nita Lowey, Ranking Member, Appropriations Committee; Chris Van Hollen of Budget; Frank Pallone, newly elected Ranking Member of the Energy and Commerce Committee; Maxine Waters, Ranking Member of the Financial Services Committee; Louise Slaughter, the Committee on Rules; Sandy Levin, Ways and Means; Collin Peterson, House Committee on Agriculture; Adam Smith is not with us because of another matter, House Armed Services Committee; Bobby Scott, new [Ranking Member] of House Education and Workforce – we're so excited about that; Eliot Engel, House Foreign Affairs Committee; Bennie Thompson, Committee on Homeland Security; John Conyers, House Judiciary Committee; Elijah Cummings, House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform; Eddie Bernice Johnson, House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology; Nydia Velazquez, House Small Business Committee; Peter DeFazio, House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee; Corrine Brown, House Committee on Veterans' Affairs; Bob Brady, House Administration Committee; Linda Sanchez, House Ethics Committee; Carolyn Maloney, Joint Economic Committee; Raul Grijalva, new Ranking Member of Natural Resources.

I always said in my own district in San Francisco and in California, the beauty is in the mix, the strength is in the mix. And we are so very, very proud that our seats at the table of the Ranking Members represent not only the beautiful diversity, they not only look like America, they live like America. They understand the challenges, the aspirations of all Americans. We are very, very proud.

I could talk for a long time about each and every one of you, but you will see and you know already in some of the cases of Members who have been serving, how excellent their leadership is, how principled their policies are, how deep their values are. We're very, very proud of our Members.

So today we're excited about the President's announcement coming up on immigration. It's very exciting. He will make his own announcement as to what it contains, but the action the President will take this week – I'm so pleased it will be before Thanksgiving – about securing the border, holding undocumented immigrants accountable, and, again, reassuring everyone, making sure that everyone plays by the rules, pays taxes, and the rest. The President will be making a very special announcement in Nevada, and I am very pleased to have been invited to join him on that trip.

As I've said to you before, the President has great authority in the law to take these actions and great precedent of so many Presidents, from Eisenhower on. Just to go in that span of time, so many Presidents have moved to protect people in our country. It's of interest to me that President Ronald Reagan, even after Congress acted, said "not good enough" and took [executive] action with the Family Fairness Initiatives to keep families together.

So this is pretty exciting. It's bold. It's courageous. It's as good as it can be under the law. That doesn't mean we wouldn't like to have a bill, and some of the provisions will have to take a little time to be implemented. There is plenty of time for the Republicans, in fact, even two weeks when we come back, to pass an immigration bill, either the Senate bill or some versions that they want to put forward.

But in the meantime, I'm so happy that so many people in our country will be enjoying a happier Thanksgiving, because family values are what we are all about. We still want legislation. We still want legislation. But when you look at the constituency for this, the Bibles, the religious community all saying this addresses, serves our values, the business community saying this is really good for our economy.

Mr. Becerra, the Chair of our Caucus, called for a CBO report that said this would save so much money over time. So it's good for reducing the deficit, but it's also good for job creation in our country. We have the business community, the Bibles, and we have the badges, law enforcement, saying: "Let's do this right. Let's do this right." And that's what the President is doing. So we commend him for that.

In any event, another score – as a Californian, I'm happy. No, I'm not going to talk about the World Series again. Don't worry. We had our ribs two days ago. What I do want to talk about is the fact that last night, Mr. Costa and Mr. Bera's races were called for the Democrats. So that means, of the 14 races that were outstanding after election day, 13 of them have been called for the Democrats. We have one more that we're waiting for in Arizona.

But just as a Californian, I'm proud to say that. When we first started down this path in the year 2000 in order to win the House for the Democrats and for the American people, we were in California – 26 [Democrats] – 26 [Republicans] – even. We made the fight with a goal to take the House. Right now we are 39 Democrats, 14 Republicans. Picked up one more in redistricting. That would have been Linda Sanchez, to my left.

And so in any case, the silver lining – not a big silver lining, but a thread of a silver lining for us in California – is even though there was an assault on our state, that is to say we have a new leader on the Republican side, he's saying that they're going to take back some of these seats, that they're going to make it a priority – we not only won all of the seats, we picked up a seat with Congressman-to-be Aguilar. And that really holds to the whole West Coast. We didn't lose a seat. We gained a seat in California. Just to be up to date on news of the day in terms of the races.

With that, I'd be pleased, and I'm sure my colleagues would be pleased, to take any questions you may have.

Yes, ma'am.

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Q: Leader Pelosi, on immigration, what's your response to Republicans who say that the President's actions are going to make them more mistrustful and less likely to work with the President and with you on comprehensive immigration reform?

Leader Pelosi. For a number of years – and any of my colleagues who want to speak to this please step forward – for a number of years, the Republicans have been saying to us: "We're going to pass a bill, we're going to pass a bill, we're going to pass a bill. Don't get excited, we're going to pass a bill. First give us a chance to establish our principles." They did that. We praised their principles. They ran them up the flagpole. We saluted. Their Members chopped down the flagpole.

So then it was: "Well, just wait until after the primaries." Then the primaries came and went, no bill. We want a bill. The Senate passed a bill. It is over 500 days since the Senate passed a bill and still no action by the House Republicans on anything. Some small bills, some bigger bills, whatever – nothing, nothing. And really this is a dereliction of duty not to address the broken immigration system in our country and what it does to our economy, and first and foremost to our families.

So what I would say to them is: Look to Ronald Reagan, your hero. Look what he did to keep families united and to protect people in our country. Look at every President in the lifetime of most Members of Congress – [every President has] acted upon protecting people. You have seen – I keep bringing up – our op-ed that goes into detail on that, and we have so much backup on it.

So that isn't a reason. That is an excuse. That's not a reason not to cooperate with us; it's an excuse for them not to cooperate. And this is something that we have a responsibility to do. We have a path, bipartisan, almost two thirds of the Senate in a bipartisan way passed the bill. It's certainly not the bill I would have written, but it's a bill that can pass, and it's a bill that we should take up or substitute something for.

So really I think that we cannot have the public be misled by the fact that the President is acting as Presidents do because we are not acting as legislators do to pass laws.

Q: So you think they don't have a case when they say that what the President is doing is unconstitutional?

Leader Pelosi. Absolutely, positively not. Are they making that same accusation of Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford, Richard Nixon, George Herbert Walker Bush, George W. Bush, to name a few of their friends? And nobody was better on immigration than George W. Bush. He was absolutely great.

Q: Are you disappointed or see an opportunity to address the fact that the President's likely not to include health care or access to the Affordable Care Act system to those who gain some legalization through this process?

Leader Pelosi. Let's let the President make his announcement and see what it does. There are certain things that have to be done by law, and the President has been meticulous in acting where he has legal authority to do so. So I'm not going to go into the particulars of something that he hasn't even announced yet.

Q: Keeping on the immigration theme here, there's this old saying that says, "History doesn't repeat itself, but it sure does rhyme." You've mentioned every President from Eisenhower to George W. Bush over the past couple of days here in citing this. Are those, though, because Republicans say: Wait a minute, these aren't legitimate comparisons; these were different circumstances at different times. Is this apples to oranges?

Leader Pelosi. Absolutely not. Absolutely not.

Q: And why not? Go deeper into that. When Reagan talked about the Nicaraguans, that was a specific case.

Leader Pelosi. When Ronald Reagan, President Ronald Reagan said – when Congress passed the immigration bill – that is not good enough; you're not keeping families together; so he protected a million and a half more people by keeping families together in his "Family Fairness" initiative.

I have voluminous legal standing for the President [to act], which I'm happy to share with you. But the President – every time we ask him: Can you give us a clue? He said: I cannot do more that I'm allowed to do. He was very meticulous about that.

My colleagues, did you want to say something?

Congresswoman Velazquez. There are 3.8 million undocumented that are either spouses or parents of U.S. American citizens. I think that if you want to discuss specificity, you've got it right there. These people will be entitled for their children to petition for them, but we don't have the law. So this will bring the Republicans to act and bring a bill to the floor that is comprehensive and will address some of the other issues that are not addressed within the executive order.

Leader Pelosi. I hope that there will be a rethinking of this by the Republicans in Congress, because certainly people in the country think that we should have comprehensive immigration reform. They are trying to poison the well by saying the President shouldn't do this for the reason that you mentioned.

But the fact is, is that I think that many of our colleagues here understand that we have to do this, and hopefully they won't use any appropriations bills or anything else to move to a shutdown of government when all we're doing is not as much as what they did in the Senate.

So I'm very excited about what the President did. I think you will see that there is an understanding even among people who might be disappointed because one thing and another is not included, but he just couldn't do it. And so they embrace what he is doing, and we'll see what that is more formally tomorrow.

Q: Leader Pelosi? Do you think there is any sort of legitimacy to the second part of the Republican argument, which is that the people just spoke, they elected a new, even larger Republican majority, and the President should wait until next year and try and work with Congress?

Leader Pelosi. The President has been trying to work with Congress, and Congress has responded by passing comprehensive immigration reform – two-thirds majority in the Senate, strong bipartisan support. We know that for the bill that we have in the House, we could pass it if the Speaker would just give us a vote. It mirrors much of the Senate bill, a little different. It has Mr. Thompson's on the border issues, and that was bipartisan unanimously passed in his committee.

Do you want to speak to that Mr. Thompson?

Congresswoman Slaughter. If I can say something, that there was a Presidential election, too.

Q: Would you come to the microphone?

Congresswoman Slaughter. I have to say that Republicans are saying they had an election, but the country had an election, and Obama was elected with great numbers, giving him the right to run the country. But if he can't get any help to do that, he has this other avenue that he and many Presidents – many of them three times more executive orders than he's ever signed. And it is perfectly legitimate, and I don't know why you are all so obsessed with that notion, because I bet you that you know yourself that it is perfectly legitimate for him to do it, and you made no outcry of any sort when anybody else did it. It's because it's Obama, President Obama.

Leader Pelosi. Well, let's just get back to the fact that we want to work together to get something done in a manner that the Senate did. We would hope that we would have bipartisan support that the case has to be made to the American people or else these false claims fall on fertile territory.

But remember, President Lincoln said: "Public sentiment is everything." I wish the Republicans would at least give the public a chance to listen to what the President is trying to do. And also, does the public know that the Emancipation Proclamation was an executive order?

People have to understand how Presidents have made change in our country, Congress catching up, and – in the case of Ronald Reagan – improving upon what Congress has done.

So, again, there are some things that I may want to see in this that may not be there, and the reason they're not there is because they don't meet the test of the President having the authority to do it. And he was very, very, again, very strong on that point. In fact, every time I would say to him: Give me a clue as to what might be happening, he said: It's not going to be as much as you want. But in any case, it's going to be great.

I think he said it's the last question. I'm told by my staff when it's the last question. It's the last question, because our colleagues now, we've adjourned. I wish you all a very happy Thanksgiving with your families, a period of renewal. Remember, I tell you all this: Recreation is re-creation. It restores your strength so we can come back in strong form to fight for the American people.

I wish you all a wonderful Thanksgiving, and we'll see you after that. But I just want to say once again how very, very proud I am of our Ranking Members. I said to my colleagues in the Caucus: Look around you. When you see the leadership of your committees and the influence they have on our Caucus, probably never again in your life will you be in a room – except maybe for church – where you are surrounded by so many idealistic, entrepreneurial and thinking, imaginative in approach, values based people, coming together for the public good. I'm very, very proud of the strength, again, in values, in knowledge, in strategic thinking that our Ranking Members bring. And the fact that they are so beautifully diverse just makes it all the better.

Thank you all very much.

Q: Madam Leader, a Thanksgiving question, if I may. Jim Webb said he's going to look at the Presidential race. Do you think a longer or shorter Democratic primary is better for the Party?

Leader Pelosi. See you after Thanksgiving. I thought you were going to ask me who's cooking the turkey.

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