House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries pointed out that Speaker Emerita Pelosi had the exact same margins in the last Congress as Speaker Johnson has now, and yet passed major and historic legislation, over and over again.
Jeffries (D-NY): “We had the same exact margins in the last congress. Republicans have produced chaos, dysfunction, and extremism. Under the same margins with Speaker Pelosi, we produced the American Rescue Plan, shots in arms, money in pockets, kids back in school…”
Watch:
Jeffries: We had the same exact margins in the last congress. Republicans have produced chaos, dysfunction, and extremism. Under the same margins with Speaker Pelosi, we produced the American Rescue Plan, shots in arms, money in pockets, kids back in school… pic.twitter.com/8qBP2ht7sU
— Acyn (@Acyn) February 7, 2024
Just a sampling of the historic legislation Pelosi passed is the American Rescue Plan, the infrastructure bill, gun safety legislation, major climate change legislation and more. She was so successful that conservatives spent decades demonizing her, resulting in a man who had been radicalized by right-wing narratives breaking into her home and bashing her husband in the skull with a hammer. This attack did not cause conservatives to backtrack on their attacks, but rather they mocked her and her husband and made up lies about him to blame him for being attacked.
Jeffries called Nancy Pelosi, who is the only woman to serve as U.S. Speaker of the House, the “greatest legislative leader, in our view, in American political history” – and frankly, he is not wrong. Not only did Pelosi manage to keep her caucus together while allowing and listening to dissent, she also trained up and comers and harnessed the energy of younger legislators while mentoring them.
She trained Jeffries himself, and he is leading his coalition so well that he got all Democrats to show up yesterday, including somehow getting Representative Al Greene of Texas to leave his hospital bed where he was recovering from intestinal surgery to vote against impeachment of DHS Sec. Mayorkas. Greene showed up in his “hospital garb” with medical staff accompanying him.
That’s commitment. You typically don’t see that kind of commitment without good leadership.
It wouldn’t be fair to Johnson to expect him to compare to Pelosi on any level, given her exceptional competence and experience. But Johnson lacks humility and seems even unaware of his own failings enough to prompt curiosity about how to improve.
Johnson spent his morning blaming the Republicans’ slim majority and nature of the House “body” for his failures, which is not something a real leader would do.
And also, Nancy Pelosi’s tenure as Speaker disproves Johnson’s excuses.
The bottom line is that Mike Johnson is not interested in democracy or the democratic process. He feels entitled to rule over the people and in spite of the people, which is why he dismisses out of hand the policies the people voted for when they elected President Biden, gave Democrats the majority in the Senate and barely allowed Republicans to take the House in an off-year that favored Republicans.
This ailment seems to be contagious, as Senate Republicans killed the very bipartisan border agreement they asked for today, all because Donald Trump needs the border to be dangerous for Americans so he can run on it.
impeachable offense, and House Republicans don’t have a leg to stand on.
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Sarah has been credentialed to cover President Barack Obama, then VP Joe Biden, 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and exclusively interviewed Speaker Nancy Pelosi multiple times and exclusively covered her first home appearance after the first impeachment of then President Donald Trump.
Sarah is two-time Telly award winning video producer and a member of the Society of Professional Journalists.
Connect with Sarah on Post, Mastodon @PoliticusSarah@Journa.Host, & Twitter.
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