Democrats Promise To Stand Up To Trump And Investigate Comey’s Campaign Meddling

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Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 09:35 pm

In a new interview with The Nation, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi echoed what so many Hillary Clinton supporters are still feeling after the Nov. 8 election and promised to fight back against the incoming Donald Trump presidency.

While Pelosi acknowledged that her party could have done some things differently over the course of the election cycle, she believes the tightening toward the end of campaign and Trump’s subsequent victory was largely due to FBI Director James Comey’s meddling:

How a man who could say, ‘I cannot sign the consensus intelligence document that says the Russians hacked the Democrats, because it’s too close to the election,’ then in turn, do a letter saying that they found more email, that might be insignificant, 12 days before the election—which [former New York mayor and Trump supporter] Giuliani perhaps had a lead on? The heat from Republicans in Congress, and in the FBI, was too much for him.”

And even though the election is over and there is little we can do to change the result, Pelosi vowed to press the issue and said it is something her caucus is taking very seriously:

[House Oversight Committee ranking member] Elijah Cummings, who is so spectacular in holding Republicans accountable, has already asked for an inspector general’s report on the FBI, why they did that, how Giuliani seemed to know sooner, and all that. Then, the second issue, let me say it: Even if Hillary Clinton had won, I still think it’s imperative to have an investigation into the fact that a foreign government had influence in our election. And they did. They were only releasing emails from the Democratic side, and you knew that there was an agenda here. And quite frankly, I don’t think the press did enough to say, Hey wait a minute, why are you just doing emails from one side?

The House minority leader also urged anxious Democrats not to worry about the party going out of its way to compromise with the president-elect just for the sake of compromising. Instead, she said, Trump should be open to their ideas, which have often led to positive results for America’s economy:

Democrats will not, for the aura of finding common ground, succumb to supporting what we don’t believe in. We have good ideas about infrastructure, and we hope the president-elect would be open to them.

She also gave a friendly reminder to Trump supporters that the ticket they supported earlier this month does not represent their best interests on important policy questions, specifically on Medicare and Social Security, and that Democrats would continue to hold Republicans accountable for these extremist positions:

Donald Trump is a phenomenon, but I don’t think many people voted for him to voucherize Medicare. [House Speaker] Paul Ryan wants to voucherize Medicare. Where is Donald Trump on that? The head of his Social Security transition team, Tom Leppard, ran for Senate on a platform of privatizing Social Security and Medicare. Where is Donald Trump on that? We have to remind people that Mike Pence voted three times for the Ryan budget, which would have voucherized Medicare and removed the Medicare guarantee. If that throws discord into their unity, so be it. The “keep your hands off my Medicare” crowd, now, where are they? He did say during the campaign that he wasn’t going to touch entitlements. Now we need to know where the president stands.

Pelosi’s comments will likely come as encouraging news for Democrats still bitter about the election results and are increasingly concerned that their party will legitimize Trump – a man who spent an entire campaign cycle saying one offensive and disqualifying comment after another – by being too eager to get things done.

It appears that Democrats are prepared to stand up to the huge threat that a Trump presidency represents.

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Sean Colarossi

Sean Colarossi currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was an organizing fellow for both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns. He also worked with Planned Parenthood as an Affordable Care Act Outreach Organizer in 2014, helping northeast Ohio residents obtain health insurance coverage.

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