Nancy Pelosi: There Will Be ‘Collateral Damage’ to Those Who Disagree with Us

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) told a gathering at the 92nd Street Y in New York on Sunday that there may have to be “collateral damage” to those Americans who do not agree with the Democratic Party agenda.

Pelosi was being interviewed onstage by Paul Krugman, the left-wing New York Times columnist and Nobel economic laureate who predicted, the day Donald Trump won the presidency, that Trump would trigger “a global recession, with no end in sight.”

In a long, rambling monologue, during which she stumbled on her words and appeared to lose her train of thought, Pelosi said:

We have to have total clarity about what we do, when it comes to everything — a woman’s right to choose, gay marriage … whether it’s about immigration, whether it’s about gun safety, whether it’s about climate … I think that we owe the American people to be there for them, for their financial security, respecting the dignity and worth of every person in our country, and if there’s some collateral damage for some others who do not share our view, well, so be it, but it shouldn’t be our original purpose.

It is not clear what Pelosi meant by “collateral damage,” though Democrats have advocated ostracizing and even prosecuting those who do not share their views on climate change.

Democrats like Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), have also targeted Trump administration officials for harassment, and Republicans around the country have complained of intimidation and assault on the campaign trail in the run-up to the midterm elections.

On Monday, Pelosi told an audience at Harvard that Democrats would win the election, and the only question was whether it would be a “wave” or a “tsunami.”

Pelosi would likely return as speaker of the House if her party wins a majority.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.