Friday on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) claimed she completely turned around the original bill Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) presented for a coronavirus bill stimulus package.
Maddow asked, “In terms of the president’s personal actions and his personal decisions, I was struck by the fact he issued a signing statement when he signed this bill today saying that he would o the provision of this bill that lays out some oversight and the establishment of the inspector general to make sure that some of the business bailout provisions in the bill aren’t misused. The president is saying today that he has no interest in that oversight, and he’ll override that. What’s your reaction to that?”
Pelosi said, “Well, of course, it’s not a surprise to anyone, but Congress will exercise its oversight. We will have our panel of House —appointed by the House in realtime to make sure we know where those funds are being expended.”
She added, “Let me say that the president’s statement is indicative of the difference between Democrats and Republicans when it came to this bill. The bill that was put on the floor last Saturday by Senator McConnell was a corporation, corporate down bill, trickle-down, as usual. What it turned into was a bubble up workers-first legislation, workers, and families first. They never thought they would be supporting the provisions that are in the bill that related to unemployment insurance and how it’s expanded in so many ways, all that we would be doing for small businesses, that there would be provisions that would be helpful to families in terms of access to health care and the rest. The bill was jiu-jitsu. We took the bill and turned it around. So they signed it in the White House as if they had some real provenance as to what was in the bill. They knew the bill was needed, and again, we put our conditions on any assistance that was going to industries in our country because we wanted to make sure that workers came first and they did in the bill. And they do in the bill.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN