Pelosi: ‘A Chokehold Is a Lynching’ — Confident Republicans Will Agree to Ban Them

Monday on CNN’s “Situation Room,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) called police chokeholds as “a lynching.”

The speaker also said she is confident Republican lawmakers will agree to the ban in the Democrats’ bill.

Host Wolf Blitzer asked, “Would it be a deal-breaker if Senate Republicans don’t include an outright ban on chokeholds?”

Pelosi said, “I can’t imagine they wouldn’t have a ban on chokeholds. Let’s get reasonable. A chokehold is a lynching. That’s strangulation. It’s a lynching. I think that is almost like the lowest common denominator, but again I will leave it up to my negotiators, because as you know in a negotiation, it’s not what’s in or out, it’s the sum total of the different impact that the legislation will have in justice and policing.”

She continued, “I think that the legislation for my members, from what I have heard them say, does it have a chokehold ban? That’s one of the basic questions that people ask. Look at what we’re talking about here. People who have been so  — just had such injustice in terms of policing and the lives of so many people in our country. Let’s do the best we can, not the minimum that we can in this. This is about justice. It’s about redressing past grievances. It’s about, let’s see what we can do. I mean, chokeholds? Am I missing something here?”

Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN