MSNBC’s national affairs analyst John Heilemann said Friday on MSNBC’s “Deadline” that he was “blown away” by the actions of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) during the riot at the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Heilemann said, “People used to mock. I think some people on the right still do mock when people say our democracy was under attack, that we were close to losing our democracy. When you see every iteration of these videos but particularly this one, this iteration, you realize like it’s not hyperbole.”
He continued, “You can see in the reactions of those leaders, of Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer and others, just how acute their understanding was in real time. You mentioned that I was up there that day. I was talking to one person who was in texting one person in one of those rooms, who was saying to me in real time they had just received word they had been denied the National Guard protection and this person at the time in real time said, you won’t believe how effing impressive Nancy Pelosi is right now. I never got details from that source.”
Heilemann added, “Seeing it now, you can’t but be struck by what an incredibly cool, commanding, under the greatest pressure in the world, cool and commanding leader Nancy Pelosi was.”
He concluded, “I was blown away by that, and I’m blown away by watching her at that moment, with that level of threat, seeing just how collected she was at every turn that we see in this video.”
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