House Speaker Nancy Pelosi isn’t impressed with Republican rival Kevin McCarthy’s overnight speech aimed at blocking the passage of a key plank in President Joe Biden’s economic agenda.
Asked Friday at a news conference about McCarthy’s record-breaking speech of 8 and 1/2 hours on the House floor to stall a vote on the Build Back Better Bill, Pelosi said she “didn’t even pay attention” to the speech because speeches on the other side of the aisle are “not fraught with meaning or fact.”
“So I don’t have my computer get bothered with that,” she said about the House minority leader.
Pelosi also declared Friday “a great day for our country” after the passage of Biden’s sweeping social spending bill.
After months of negotiation between centrists and progressives and more than a few false starts, the House passed the bill Friday morning, a step forward for key portions of the president’s domestic agenda.
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All but one Democrat, Rep. Jared Golden of Maine, voted for the nearly $2 trillion legislation, the largest expansion of the social safety net in decades. No Republicans supported the bill.
Pelosi said the bill is “not just about legislation — it’s about values.”
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer argued, “This bill will speak for itself to millions and millions and millions and millions of Americans whose lives will be made more secure, more richer in the terms of quality of life.”
“It will make America a better land,” Hoyer said.
The bill’s passage comes at a time when there is ever-growing hostility between Republicans and Democrats in the House and just days after Republican Rep. Paul Gosar was censured for sharing an edited anime video depicting him attacking New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Biden.
Asked how the tone could be improved upon in the House, Pelosi replied, “They could improve their behavior.”
“They don’t have to threaten to kill members of Congress or threaten the life of the president of the United States,” she said.
Pelosi brushed off questions about relationships with Republicans or her own political future, saying she wanted to discuss “serious business” about the bill’s passage.
“We are celebrating that we are sending it over to the Senate,” Pelosi said. “We’re not getting bogged down in long speeches or people’s careers.”
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When it arrives in the Senate, the bill must earn the support of both Democratic Sens. Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin, both of whom have expressed varying degrees of skepticism over the bill, in order to reach the president’s desk. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has indicated the upper chamber will vote on the bill before Christmas.
