Skip to main content

Transcript of Press Conference at 2022 House Democratic Issues Conference

March 11, 2022

Contact: Speaker's Press Office,

202-226-7616

Philadelphia – Speaker Pelosi joined House Democratic Leadership for a press conference at the 2022 House Democratic Issues Conference. Below are the Speaker's remarks, followed by a question and answer session:

Speaker Pelosi. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

We – let me just say, I just left an occasion where we started off by saying ‘Slava Ukraini.' So much of what we talked about last night was about the Ukraine. So much of what we have been addressing has been about Ukraine, and I'm so pleased that the President will be announcing soon – it's in the public domain already, so I don't preempt him – the lifting of most favored nation status, now known as ‘normal trade relations,' with Russia – joining with our allies in doing so.

Very proud that, in a very strong, bipartisan way, we took action in the House this week to – the purchase of Russian oil and had the Magnitsky bill – part legislation, part of that renewing that law. And then today, we'll go further.

I want to commend the President for his extraordinary leadership. The – just say this: when I was in school, and some have heard me say this, I was at the Kennedy inauguration. And he said – everybody knows it's – it's: citizens of America, ‘Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.' The very next sentence that he said, is what hit me hard, and was – I'll never forget it – is to the citizens of the world, ‘Ask not what America can do for you, but what we can do working together, for the freedom of mankind.'

Joe Biden is exemplifying that: working together for the freedom of mankind. We look forward to seeing him today. And when we do, we will congratulate him on his leadership in passing the American Rescue package.

In this plan, this is something that was – not only helped people survive from COVID, not only helped, try to have them reach their success – was transformational in how they do so. And we want to continue that work – in certain aspects of BBB were Child Tax Credit, universal pre-K, the list goes on – affordable child care. Our champion in the Congress, Katherine Clark – nobody has done more than she has in the Congress on that subject. Home health care, saving our planet, the list goes on.

We're very proud of our President, of what we did in these two days, and I thank Chairman Jeffries and Vice Chair Aguilar and Katherine who was very much a part of this, for the magnificent intellectual resources they brought together here, on subjects that relate to jobs, women in the workplace, saving our planet. The list goes on and on.

Very successful as we hone our message, so that we can win the election. With that, I'm very pleased to yield to our distinguished – I don't want to say Democrat – House Majority Leader – our Democratic Majority Leader Steny Hoyer.

***

Chairman Jeffries. Thank you, Sean. Thank you to all the Members of Leadership. Questions? And we'll have a few moments, because we are scheduled to get started with our Issues Conference Day Three today.

Going right to the back.

Q. I want to ask, so we've heard a lot from Members this week about what President Biden can do through executive action to kind of push forward some of your priorities, especially while he's in the White House and you guys are in the House and Senate. What are the legislative priorities that you guys are discussing that you can work with the Senate off of to make a lot out of the midterms?

Chairman Jeffries. Well I'm going to yield to –

Speaker Pelosi. Mr. Clyburn and Mr. Aguilar have spoken during the course of the weekend, on what we can – wherever it is, whatever that is –

[Laughter]

Speaker Pelosi. To the Issues Conference. Cross off the word ‘retreat.' We do not retreat. Mr. Clyburn?

Whip Clyburn. Well, I think everybody is pretty familiar with my feelings on that subject. And I think I have pretty good reasons to be very positive about executive action. But what I like to say to people – if you review our history as a country, great country – often, more often than not, we see great leadership in our Executive, showing the Congress the way to go.

Before Congress could ever act on the institution of slavery, Abraham Lincoln used executive order, and that's what the Emancipation Proclamation was. And the country followed some two years later – or three years after he signed the order, and I think you will find that down through history.

And so, Pete and I, we're very strong believers that sometimes the Congress, the people need to be nudged by the person we've chosen to lead. And so we believe that a whole lot can be kickstarted, not in the – because we know executive orders end with the presidency of whoever signs it. So they can be kickstarted.

And so several of us have been encouraging the President to do the significant research that is necessary and to use that method to help kickstart recovery, not just from COVID, but from some negative – or should I say adverse Supreme Court decisions when it comes to voting as well as other things that people are very, very emotionally attached to.

Q. Are you concerned about how that will affect Frontliners running in 2022?

Whip Clyburn. Well we are always concerned about how – that's why we asked him for the research to be done. Because our Frontliners, too – I don't know of a single person in the United States of America who wants to see their votes nullified. If you've got legislatures setting up procedures by which they can nullify the activity of the voters, nobody wants to see that.

So nullification, interposition, these are things that Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke about very eloquently, but we're experiencing today. And I don't know that Frontliners will want to expose themselves to a campaign and have their supporters' votes nullified.

Vice Chairman Aguilar. I'll just say briefly, and you heard yesterday from Chairman Ruiz when it comes to this, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus has been a supporter just like the Whip, that sometimes some items deserve executive action. And specifically, when it comes to, you know, honoring our commitment as a nation of immigrants, making sure that we stay true – to honor the rule of law and to make sure that we are a country that welcomes individuals. We support TPS for individuals for Ukraine, but we also want to make sure that we have a broader conversation about what we're doing to support immigrants who are fleeing violence, who are fleeing oppression and who have their lives threatened each and every day.

So we do feel that there's a role for executive action, and we plan to have those conversations. We are always mindful. As a former Frontliner, I'm always mindful about how our colleagues feel, and we will make sure that we have discussions with our colleagues each and every step of the way to make sure everyone is a part of the discussion moving forward.

But there is a role for executive action on so many important topics, like the Whip said, that affect our country and affect our safety.

Q. I just have a question about the future of COVID relief and what that's going to look like. Can you address what's going to happen with that?

Speaker Pelosi. Yes, I'm happy to address that. But first, I want to pose – quote a Republican president, since I quoted John F. Kennedy – and relationship to executive action.

The last speech that President Reagan made as President of the United States is one that I have referenced in the past with all you, some of you, but I – Google it, you should read it. But just briefly, this is a speech – ‘this was the last speech I will make as President of the United States and want to communicate a message to a country I love.' And he talked about immigration. He talked about immigration and how America's pre-eminence in the world depended on people constantly coming to our shores, that the Statue of Liberty was this beacon of hope. And that once – if we ever shut that door, we would cease to be pre-eminent in the world. He said it better and longer. But why I mentioned it is because when Congress passed the immigration bill of 1986, which was – none of us – were you in Congress, Steny? And it was – which was the last time we had a massive immigration bill.

[Crosstalk]

So he didn't – you know, Congress passed the bill. And the President said – decided Congress had not gone far enough. So by executive order, he did family fairness. He expanded what would happen in terms of immigration. George Herbert Walker Bush continued that. And so Ronald Reagan, immigration, executive order. So there is a precedent for that.

But we of course, we have a – continue to have a need in terms of addressing COVID. The important part of it, as the President has said and that we have – we agree that we have new therapies that can intervene, almost immediately – different science, just pills rather than things that have to be frozen – sub, sub, sub, sub-zero and with small, short shelf life.

So we have to be able to afford to buy more of these because they intervene early. When they intervene early, they prevent – hopefully prevent the spread. The transmission is where new, new variants come forth. So in other words, what we want is no new variant, but we want to be able to address – remedy the situation for those in early stages so that it doesn't take us to a different place.

What the President was asking for in the legislation was a good start. It wasn't everything. So we would have been needed to do more anyway. And it is – and we will. We will. It will be about more funding for those early therapies that we need. And we introduce – we were going to introduce – was that last night or the night before? But it got to be the next morning, so we will be introducing the legislation next week.

Q. [inaudible]

Speaker Pelosi. We'll see. Right now, we have already shaped the bill. It's already been – it's already been approved by the Rules Committee. So what we have in the bill there, is what we'll go forward with now, but with the idea that we want more.

And really important in all of this is our responsibility to the rest of the world. We all know that unless we're all safe, none of us is safe. And we do have a responsibility to help spread some of these therapies – especially those now that are more easily sent to countries because again, other – they have a longer shelf life and they don't need to be super frozen.

So we can't ignore our responsibilities to the rest of the world, but we also need to honor our responsibilities at home.

Q. Madam Speaker, you talked a little bit about the challenges of holding an issues retreat this week on – focused mostly on your domestic agenda at the same time that there is more war raging in Ukraine. We heard from some of your Members who just returned from the border of Poland and Ukraine talking about the humanitarian crisis that they've seen personally. You've got –

Speaker Pelosi. Well, let me first not stipulate to your question that it is a retreat. That we not — eliminate that word. And I feel quite certain that my colleagues will have something to say about this.

No, the – what we wanted, as I began my comments today – my first comments today were about ‘Slava Ukraini.' This is central to what we're talking about here. People are dying. I spent about 50 minutes with the – you time, they time these things, that's the way it is – with President Zelensky before we came, the day before we came here. It is central, because people are dying. They were bombing a maternity hospital at that time.

So there's no question that we are paying the attention we need to pay to it. Today, our President will also put forth a request for us to bring to the Floor as we prepare to do next week, working in a bipartisan way, hoping to do it under suspension because we have that much support for terminating – well, I call it ‘most favored nation status.' They've given it a euphemism, so it doesn't sound so – whatever.

But no, this is essential. We have to – we had 13 billion – $13.6 billion in the legislation that we passed – was passed in the Senate yesterday, but passed the day before in our House.

So no, we don't, we don't stop what we need to do for America's working families. We have to be strong. And as the President has clearly prioritized, we need to meet the needs of the American people. We have to save our own democracy, which is under assault in our country. And at the same time, we can honor our responsibilities to peace on the world – and helping all we can.

I want to yield to some of my colleagues, though, because I'm sure they'll – your question is sort of global and values and – prioritized or – I have every –

I wish you could have seen last night. To see – I wish you could have seen. Not that much I don't wish you could have seen, or you would have been there.

[Laughter]

Perhaps we will do it again. Sara Jacobs presided over a moderated conversation with the Secretary of Homeland Security and Secretary – former Ambassador Mike McFaul. It was fabulous.

And it was presided over by Steny Hoyer, so I'm going to yield to him on this.

Leader Hoyer. I just was going to say: one of the major presentations in this conference, this remote – this renewal of resolve, as I call it, rather than a retreat – was about Ukraine. I spoke about the general broader picture of our responsibility and the threat to our democracy that the Putin criminal invasion of Ukraine presents. And Sara Jacobs, who has been involved – she's young, she's new, but she's not new to national security. She's not new to conflict resolution. And Secretary Mayorkas who has been given the responsibility by the President of the United States to – from the homeland security standpoint, respond and guard against the Russian – either cybersecurity issues, misinformation, involved in our elections, et cetera, et cetera.

And then Ambassador McFaul, of course, spoke of the Russian psychology, the Russian condition. He made a very important point that this is Putin's war, not the Russian people's war. He believes, he said, that they're – the Russian people – if they were given the information, and of course Putin is doing everything he can possible to preclude the Russian people from getting the information of the tragedy and atrocity that is occurring in Ukraine. But it was the last thing we did last night and two hours of debate, discussion and resolve on this issue.

The Members – a lot of questions asked, a lot of presentation with respect to, we need to make sure that we do everything we can, short of risking a World War, which I think there is a consensus that that risk needs to be avoided, while at the same time giving all the resources and humanitarian relief to Ukraine that it needs. And very frankly, because [of what] the President of the United States and our European allies – which the President has reunited and strengthened their resolve – have done, which is why the courage of Ukrainian people can be manifested in having slowed down very, very substantially, a much, much greater force confronting them.

Whip Clyburn. If I may, Steny, and I just returned – well, last weekend we spent down at Selma, and Birmingham and Montgomery. And I was absolutely floored, when person after person came to me saying, ‘We are all for voting rights. But if you aren't going to do something to help end this war, there's nothing – there's going to be nothing to vote for.'

So this is how deep this goes. We're down there for the 57th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, but they were concerned about what we're going to do to stop Putin. Because if we don't, they feel there'll be nothing to vote for.

Vice Chairman Aguilar. Another question?

Q. Yeah, I want to ask about this line about what's going on in Ukraine and in Russia. There's obviously broad bipartisan approval for the ways in which Russia has been cut off by the global economy etc. But have you guys talked here in your sessions about how you need to explain to Americans why they're seeing prices rise, so that this does not come back around against you guys in the midterms?

Vice Chairman Aguilar. Yeah, absolutely. I'll yield to the – I'll yield to the Speaker and Majority Leader, but throughout our panels, not only Member questions about how this impacts our communities, but hearing from outside experts, hearing from individuals who – who can guide us through this, and talk about this. But we are completely mindful about how this impacts our communities in our – in our country. We're – we're thoughtful about it.

But we are clear-eyed about what the best policy is going to be, supporting the best policy, supporting our President and making sure that we do everything we can to deliver relief, and that is a continuing conversation about what we can do. But reducing the costs for everyday Americans has been forefront of the Democratic Caucus. It will continue to be a theme that we are going to talk about and develop policy behind. That's what the leaders behind me have focused on, and that's what we're going to continue to champion.

Speaker?

Q. You guys talk a lot about the Executive Order and the Biden – what has – from Whip Clyburn or yourself, what has the President's response been to these requests?

Vice Chairman Aguilar. I'll yield to Mr. Clyburn, too, but I think this is, you know, a continued conversation. I know that Chairman Ruiz indicated that we'll have more to say – the Congressional Hispanic Caucus will have more to say about this topic in the next few weeks. But engaging with the White House – and they know what our requests are. We've had these, these conversations. And you know, we'll keep those – I'm sure the Whip will say we'll keep those conversations, you know, amongst friends for now.

But at the appropriate time, we do feel that it's important for the President to comment on these and for the White House to deliver through executive action if necessary. Speaker, and then Whip.

Whip Clyburn. I'm fine. I'm fine with that.

Q. Are you concerned about – I mean DACA is a good example of the legal battle over executive action. Are you guys concerned about some of these things that you're trying to do because executive action – [inaudible]

Vice Chairman Aguilar. Well, legislating is always our preferred strategy. From the Speaker, to the – to the Majority Leader, to everyone behind me, we know that there is no substitute to developing laws that deliver benefits to our communities. But we also need partners on the other side of the aisle who are willing to do that. And time and time again, Republicans have not supported taking action, whether it's delivering voting rights or ensuring that people who call – there is no other country that is their home except in the United States – to ensure that they are protected. So it's our responsibility to make sure that we protect our communities. The Democratic Caucus is not going to step away from that responsibility and will continue to make progress.

Speaker Pelosi. If I just may – the Emancipation Proclamation was an executive order. It is very important for us to have legislative action to get the desired effect, what we need to do – but it's very important for the Executive to act if we cannot get legislative action immediately. But there's no – in my view, there's no substitute for legislative.

Now, let me just get back to the question. The larger issue about Putin's tax. That's, that's really Putin's gas hike, that's his gas hike, this, so much of this increase in the gas tax – the gas price started in the weeks leading up to what happened there. But it has – it takes, in the context of a larger increase in prices that have different reasons why we have inflation. Inflation, sometimes, most frequently, accompanies lower unemployment. Lower unemployment, more inflation. We have to counter it. We have to recognize it, and we have to counter it. Supply chain shortages contribute – lower, lower supply, higher cost. We have to, we have to recognize it, and we have to address it.

And one of the things that we talked about yesterday – so, we don't want to give up jobs in order – you know, we want lower unemployment. Some – there will be some inflation that comes with it, but we don't want it – it can't be excessive. And all these other things contribute to it.

So one of the sessions that we had spent a good deal of time on the – what we call the America COMPETES Act of 2022. And it is – it addresses the need for us to have a big investment in chips, so that we have more supply. It addresses – and that's $52 billion. Over $40 billion in addressing the supply chain shortages, over $40 billion in that. And that will go a long way to increasing supply and then reducing the rising costs that go with decreased supply.

And the third part of it is investments in education and research and the rest. And that's a place that we're – we're proud of all of it, but we're very proud of that. Because – comes back to what I started with earlier. Survival, success, transformation. And this bill is transformational in how it not only increases supply to lower inflation, to create jobs, but to do so – that has full diversity in how we go forward with education and training and workforce development and all of that.

One other point that we'll make about it is that what we are doing in our legislation, what we would do in the Build Back Better – seventeen Nobel laureates in economics said that that legislation does not increase inflation. It is non-inflationary because of the way it is written. The imprimatur if you get it – the kiss of death if you don't – the Joint Tax Committee has said that the BBB would lower, would add $100 billion, so that that gets subtracted from the national debt. Saves $100 billion over ten years. But we have to live in a year where, even though the bill is for ten years, they measure it for 20 years, and the imprimatur said a trillion dollars over 20 years is saved.

So when we're having this discussion, it's important to dispel some of those who say, well, ‘Is the government spending – ' no, it isn't. The government spending is doing the exact reverse, reducing the national debt. It is not inflationary, A.

B, we don't want to reduce the increase in jobs, which we're very proud of – this President breaking records. His historic numbers of jobs created in the first year of his term in office, and a lot of it traced to the American [Rescue Plan].

But yeah, it's – we're paying very close attention to it. But this starts with Putin, because – global inflation, for reasons beyond the gas tax – the gas price, global inflation is something that we have to deal with globally, but we have our responsibility to deal with it at home. And we have legislation that does just that, by increasing supply. And again, creating jobs in a way that is not adding to inflation.

Vice Chairman Aguilar. Thank you. We got to get going. Thank you.

# # #