Well, that escalated quickly.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi got into a heated exchange with CNN veteran Wolf Blitzer on Tuesday that resulted in the California congresswoman telling the cable TV journalist he didn’t know what he was talking about.
Right off the bat, Blitzer got under Pelosi’s skin by asking if she could look her constituents “in the eye… and explain why you don’t want to accept the president’s latest stimulus offer.”
Pelosi cited her decades in office and said she knew the needs of her constituents and that the Trump administration’s $1.8 trillion stimulus proposal didn’t meet them.
“They really need the money right now,” Blitzer said after noting many people were receiving food stamps for the first time.
Thank you @wolfblitzer! pic.twitter.com/jiLmdeEjqV
— Rep. Paul Gosar, DDS (@RepGosar) October 14, 2020
The debate got hotter still when Blitzer asked Pelosi about a tweet from Cali representative Ro Khanna suggesting fellow Democrats take the COVID-19 stimulus relief bill now and force Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to play ball later.
“What do you say to Ro Khanna?” Blitzer asked.
“What I say to you is I don’t know why you’re always an apologist –and many of your colleagues — apologists for the Republican position,” she said, clearly agitated.
She added that Khanna’s opinion was “nice,” but not a factor in her negotiations and that a deal would be worked out earlier than February.
Blitzer argued that fellow Democrat Andrew Yang agreed with Khanna, which did not impress Pelosi.
“Honest to God, I really can’t get over it,” she fumed, calling Yang and Khanna “lovely,” then reminding Blitzer. “They’re not negotiating this situation.”
Blitzer pushed Pelosi about a proposal from President Trump’s treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin. That didn’t go over well either.
“With all due respect you really don’t know what you’re talking about,” Pelosi snapped.
After more back and forth, Blitzer said to Pelosi “I’m asking you serious discussions because so many people are in desperate need right now,” then asked the speaker of the house when she last spoke to the president to strike a deal.
“I don’t speak to the president, I speak to his representative,” she said.
Blitzer asked why Pelosi and Trump don’t just get on the phone and hammer out a deal one-on-one.
“What makes me amused if it weren’t so sad, is how you all think you know more about the suffering of the American people than those of us who are elected by them to represent them at that table,” Pelosi said, arguing the Trump administration is looking out for the wealthy and neglecting the pandemic.
In addition to arguing Blitzer didn’t know specifics of the Republican proposal, she accused the host of disrespecting members of congress involved in the negotiations. Blitzer contended he wasn’t speaking for himself, but rather, for people who are struggling to feed their families. That drew a sarcastic reply from Pelosi.
“Thank you for your sensitivity to our constituents’ needs,” Pelosi sniped.
Pelosi bombarded Blitzer with facts and figures, which she again pointed out he didn’t know and added Yang and Khanna weren’t privy to those specifics either.
“Madame Speaker, these are incredibly difficult times right now and we’ll leave it on that note,” Blitzer said, thanking Pelosi for her time.
“No, we’ll leave it on the note that you are not right on this, Wolf, and I hate to say that to you,” she said.
Blitzer wound down the segment, but not before adding “I am sensitive to them, because I seem them on the street begging for food, begging for money.”
Pelosi asked the CNN anchor “Have you fed them? We feed them.”
___
(c)2020 New York Daily News
Visit New York Daily News at www.nydailynews.com
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
—-
This content is published through a licensing agreement with Acquire Media using its NewsEdge technology.
Recent Comments