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Transcript of Pelosi Weekly Press Conference Today

February 14, 2019

Contact: Speaker's Press Office, 202-226-7616

Washington, D.C. – Speaker Nancy Pelosi held her weekly press conference today in the Capitol Visitor Center. Below are the Speaker's remarks:

Speaker Pelosi. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for coming later in the day.

As you probably are aware, this morning we celebrated the life of Chairman John Dingell at Holy Trinity Church in Georgetown. And right now many of our colleagues are in North Carolina to, again, celebrate the life of Walter Jones, our colleague from North Carolina, a beautiful, lovely man.

I served with him and served with his father, two different parties, his father a Democrat, Walter a Republican, but both of them Southern gentlemen, patriotic Americans, both of the Joneses, and certainly Walter Jones and John Dingell.

Today is also a day of sadness because it marks the one year anniversary of the Parkland tragedy of gun violence. One year ago, America's heart was broken by the horrific act of violence in Parkland, Florida. Today, we remember the seventeen lives that were stolen from us then.

I am very pleased that last night the House Judiciary Committee, under the leadership of Jerry Nadler and with the full participation of our Members, took a strong step to end the epidemic of gun violence, and they advanced H.R. 8, the bipartisan, commonsense background check legislation.

Our committees are hard at work. I am very proud of our freshmen. I think I've said to you before that in this freshman class we have eighteen Chairs of Subcommittees. To contrast that to another historic freshman class, the Watergate babies, when they came in with all of the size and enthusiasm that they did, they didn't have one Subcommittee Chair in the first year that they took office. So we are very proud that eighteen of them have gavels.

By all accounts from our Chairmen, they come enthusiastic, well-prepared, all of the Members but especially, of course, our Subcommittee Chairs.

So, we are very hard at work on our For the People agenda while we are waiting for the Senate to pass the conference report, the bipartisan, bicameral conference report, which I understand is imminent in the Senate, and then we will vote on it later today.

So, that's real progress, I think, for us to have left it to the appropriators to make the decisions, come up with a bicameral, bipartisan bill that we can overwhelmingly support. But at the same time, we are working on our For the People agenda.

For The People agenda: first and foremost said it was going to lower health care costs by lowering the cost of prescription drugs. We've already had committees, the Ways and Means Committee and the Oversight Committee – Government Reform and Oversight Committee have already had hearings on the price of prescription drugs.

Our second point in the For the People agenda was to lower health care costs, bigger paychecks by building the infrastructure of America. And, again, last week, the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee held a hearing with representatives of the private and public sector, the mayor of Los Angeles representing our nation's mayors, Governor Walz representing our governors and others participating there.

A third point of For the People agenda is H.R. 1, to reduce the role of big, dark, special interest money in politics, lower voter suppression and increase the voice of everyday Americans in our political system to restore confidence in our political system.

And we've already had an outside-of-Washington hearing under the leadership of Marcia Fudge in Brownsville, Texas, with great participation from our Members, including our distinguished Whip, Mr. Clyburn, participating.

And here this week, we have had the Homeland Security Committee having a hearing on H.R. 1 as it relates to the integrity of our elections. And we have the House Administration Committee having a hearing on that as well.

Again, part of our H.R. 1, 2, 3, the first ten resolutions of the House, the first ten bills, we are very pleased how we are advancing the For the People agenda, but, also, H.R. 8, the gun violence prevention bill. Probably – I think they may have reported out two. Scheduled to report out two: that bill and then Mr. Clyburn's initiative on a fix for South Carolina, which has bipartisan, bicameral support.

Just a word further on the agreement that we will be voting on later today. In addition to the pieces on Homeland Security, which are very important – and, by the way, the Homeland Security budget is a big budget. It's not just about the Mexico border. It's about icecutters off of Alaska and other parts of our border that are not necessarily just the southern part. And I am very pleased that some long advocated for pieces are now in that budget as well. So, when you talk about the size of the budget, it's broader than the U.S.-Mexico border.

But the bill that we will be passing is a long overdue pay raise for federal employees, to make them on a par with military employees, as they had always been; an additional $1 billion for the Census, to combat the Administration's assault and to ensure a fair, accurate count; $3 billion to keep communities safe by combating the opioid epidemic and hiring more police officers; $17 billion to rebuild America's infrastructure; billions of dollars in support of small businesses; more than $9 billion to protect clean air, clean water and public lands; $9.1 billion in security assistance for our allies; and $7.4 billion for global health and nutrition assistance.

So this is a very important legislation, the six appropriations bills that were agreed to and not as controversial, and then the Homeland Security bill, which produced the result that, today, we will keep government open. And that's very important for the American people. But we will also, as we do so, protect our borders and protect our values.

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Speaker Pelosi. Yes, ma'am?

Q: The President just said that he will declare a national emergency when he signs this bill. Do you still plan to file a legal challenge if and when he does that? And how quickly would you do that?

Speaker Pelosi. Did I ever say I was filing a legal challenge?

Q: You said Democrats would challenge it.

Speaker Pelosi. I may. That's an option. And we'll review our options, but it's important to note that when the President declares this emergency, first of all, it's not an emergency, what is happening at the borders. It's a humanitarian challenge to us. The President has tried to sell a bill of goods to America.

But, putting that aside, just in terms of the President making an end run around Congress here, he said, I will respect what the committee will do, and then he walks away from it.

But, in any event, the President is doing an end run about Congress, about the power of the purse. You've heard me say over and over again, Article I, the legislative branch, the power of the purse, the power to declare war, many other powers listed in the Constitution, and, of course, the responsibility to have oversight. So the President is doing an end run around that.

We will review our options. We will be prepared to respond appropriately to it.

I know the Republicans have some unease about it, no matter what they say. Because if the President can declare an emergency on something that he has created as an emergency, an illusion that he wants to convey, just think of what a President with different values can present to the American people.

You want to talk about a national emergency? Let's talk about today, the one year anniversary of another manifestation of the epidemic of gun violence in America. That's a national emergency.

Why don't you declare that emergency, Mr. President? I wish you would.

But a Democratic president can do that. A Democratic president can declare emergencies as well. So, the precedent that the President is setting here is something that should be met with great unease and dismay by the Republicans.

And, of course, we will respond accordingly when we review our options. First, we have to see what the President actually says.

Q: Speaker Pelosi?

Speaker Pelosi. Yes.

Q: To that end, there has been some discussion of a resolution in the House that might force Republicans to go on the record and vote against this. Would that be an option?

Speaker Pelosi. I'm saying that we are reviewing our options, and we have to see what the President will say.

I don't believe that there is any good faith negotiations to have with the Republicans in Congress if they are going to support the President doing an end run about what the will of the people, the Congress of the United States, has put forth.

So, we will review our options, and I'm not prepared to give any preference to any one of them right now.

Q: Madam Speaker, thank you. On the news of the past couple of moments, that the President told the Senate Majority Leader that he would sign the bill, you must be pleased with that. But on the national emergency, does that change the vote calculus at all?

Obviously, if you have the President saying he's going to sign a piece of legislation, people would say, okay, I would vote for that. But also that caveat, that could potentially peel votes away. Does that have any impact?

Speaker Pelosi. Let's just have the vote, Chad. That's very interesting, but let's just have the vote.

Q: But you don't think that changes the support one way or the other?

Speaker Pelosi. Well, it may – I don't know. It will probably have more of an influence in the United States Senate. We have the votes in the House.

But it is interesting to see how the vote has – the President has said to the Republican Leadership in the Senate, Senator Shelby, a senior appropriator, the Chairman of the Appropriations Committee there, a respected leader in the United States Senate, ‘I don't have confidence in what you did,' even though the President failed to convince the American people and their Representatives in Congress of his position.

But let's just see what the votes are, because who knows what the calculus is on that side. I don't –

Q: It doesn't affect your side of the aisle, though.

Speaker Pelosi. No.

Q: Madam Speaker, as far as the gun control bill or, rather, the background check bill is a concern, you just said that a national emergency should be declared on –

Speaker Pelosi. Could be declared. If he wants to talk about emergencies, that's a national emergency.

Q: That's something that you would like to see a president declare –

Speaker Pelosi. No, I am just saying a president could do that. If you want to go down that path, then let's look at what really is a national emergency.

I am not advocating for any president doing an end run around Congress. I am just saying that the Republicans should have some dismay about the door that they are opening, the threshold they are crossing.

Q: Madam Speaker, in your opening comments, you spoke some about the freshman class.

Speaker Pelosi. Yes.

Q: I was just wondering, there have been a number of viral moments that some of these new Democratic Members, especially, have created –

Speaker Pelosi. That's the word, ‘viral, viral, viral.' And that's your question now, the viral moments of the –

Q: I wanted to ask, have you thought of their influence? Do these Dem freshmen have an outsize influence that you've never seen before?

Speaker Pelosi. No. Welcome to the Democratic Party. We are not a rubber stamp for anybody. We are not a monolith; we never have been. And who would want to lead a party that would be described that way?

The Members come, they bring their enthusiasms, their priorities, and we welcome that. And they are not programmed. They are spontaneous, prepared. And I am proud of them.

Staff. Last question.

Speaker Pelosi. Yes, sir.

Q: Again, you mentioned the anniversary of Parkland several times, and the legislation you're bringing to the Floor enjoys broad support.

Speaker Pelosi. Yes.

Q: Other legislation to that end, not quite as popular around the country, although it's more popular among the Democratic Caucus than probably ever.

Are you committed to bringing to the Floor some further legislation to that end, such as the restoration of the ban on assault style weapons?

Speaker Pelosi. Well, the Judiciary Committee and the committees of jurisdiction will review any proposals that we have on any subject. And what they have prioritized – and in addition to the committee, we have a task force headed up by Congressman Mike Thompson of California, who has worked in a bipartisan way to protect the American people.

What are the measures that save the most lives? And how do we get them into law, a proposal that turns into legislation, that passes as a law that makes a difference in the lives of the American people? And it's up to the Committee and the task force to make their proposals as we go forward.

We do think that keeping guns out of the hands of people who shouldn't have them probably saves the most lives.

Thank you all very much.

Oh, Happy Valentine's Day. All we need is love and chocolate, right?

Q: What time are you voting? Can we still go to Valentine's Day dinner?

Speaker Pelosi. That would be the hope of – it depends on how soon the Senate takes up the bill. We said that we wouldn't vote before 6:30 because that's when our Members come back from North Carolina. But we hope not to have it be one minute after that. So, you will have time for dinner.

Thank you all very much.

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