Nancy Pelosi Has Chosen Her War, and It's With Her Own Party's Future
By Mehdi Hasan, The Intercept
08 July 19
They call themselves the "Squad." From climate change to student debt to
migrants in detention, progressive House Democrats Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez,
Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and Ayanna Pressley have been energetic and
outspoken since getting elected last November - and, as a result, have
become inured to constant attacks from congressional Republicans and, of
course, Fox News.
But how about from their own boss?
In an interview with the New York Times' Maureen Dowd, House Speaker Nancy
Pelosi dismissed the Squad as "four people" who have their "public whatever
and their Twitter world" but don't "have any following."
Ouch. This isn't the first time Pelosi has trolled the left-wing quartet. In
April, when she was asked by Leslie Stahl on 60 Minutes to comment on the
newly emboldened progressive wing of her party, Pelosi responded: "That's
like five people."
In the wake of November's midterms, Pelosi mocked calls from AOC and her
allies for a Green New Deal: "The green dream or whatever they call it,
nobody knows what it is, but they're for it right?"
To be clear: none of these freshmen Democrats have personally attacked
Pelosi and all four of them backed her bid for the speakership. As CNN's
Nathan McDermott tweeted, "It is pretty notable that the most vocally
anti-Pelosi Democrats (ala the moderates in swing districts who opposed her
leadership) don't get as much criticism from her as the left-wing of the
party."
How about Donald Trump? Pelosi is willing to criticize Trump - "I've never
encountered, thought about, seen within the realm of my experiences as a
child or an adult, anybody like this" - but only criticize. Nothing more.
Not impeachment, that's for sure. The top Democrat in the House told Dowd
that the president has engaged in criminal behavior but - wait for it - "you
can't impeach everybody."
The New York Times interview is yet another reminder for liberals and
leftists that if they want to oppose Trump, they have to oppose Pelosi too.
Think I'm exaggerating? Consider three recent - and shameful - episodes.
First, the rape allegations against the president. On June 21, New York
magazine published a cover story from the famed advice columnist and writer
E. Jean Carroll, in which she documented in excruciating detail how Trump,
back in the mid-1990s, forced "his penis halfway" inside of her in the midst
of a "colossal struggle" in a Bergdorf's dressing room.
Pelosi's response to a reporter who asked her for comment a whole six days
later? "I don't know the person making the accusation. I haven't paid that
much attention to it."
Now, she tells Dowd: "I respect the case she has but I don't see any role
for Congress."
The sitting Republican president has been credibly accused of having
committed a sexual assault and yet Congress, says the Democratic speaker of
the House, has no "role" in holding him to account for it. Oh, and the
speaker herself hasn't been paying "attention to it."
This, my dear liberals, is your (feminist) champion.
Second, the crisis at the border. One of the reasons Pelosi cited for not
being familiar with the E. Jean Carroll story was that she was "busy
worrying about children not being in their mother's arms." Yet on that same
day, as the New York Times reported, Pelosi "capitulated to Republicans and
Democratic moderates and dropped her insistence on stronger protections for
migrant children in overcrowded border shelters" by signing onto a bill from
the Republican-led Senate, giving the Trump administration $4.6 billion to
tackle the situation on the southern border.
Last time I checked, though, this administration's horrific decision to
separate migrant children from their parents had nothing to do with a lack
of funds. "The cruelty is the point," as the Atlantic's Adam Serwer so
memorably put it. Plus, 18 so-called "centrist" Democrats pushed Pelosi into
dropping her objections to the Senate bill and yet in her New York Times
interview, the speaker decided to level her attack on. you guessed it. the
Squad. They made themselves irrelevant and shouldn't have voted against "our
bill," she told Dowd, adding: "They're four people and that's how many votes
they got."
Yet they were far from alone in opposing Pelosi's decision. "The final vote,
305 to 102," reported the Times on June 27, "included far more Republicans
in favor, 176, than Democrats, 129."
Meanwhile, over at the border, children continue to be starved, women
continue to drink out of toilet bowls, and men continue to be held in
standing-room-only conditions. The Trump administration is now contemplating
mass video proceedings held over video.
Thank you, Madam Speaker.
Third, Trump's tax returns. Last Tuesday, almost exactly six months after
Democrats won control of the House, they finally took the president of the
United States to court to try and force disclosure of his financial records.
Trump administration officials and Trump's army of personal lawyers have
offered a range of excuses for refusing to release these records - and for
defying congressional subpoenas in the process. But as Slate's Mark Joseph
Stern has noted, one in particular stands out from the rest.
On June 10, in an appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of
Columbia Circuit, Trump's lawyers contested the claim that the House's
impeachment power could justify subpoenaing the president's financial
records while gleefully pointing out to the judge that impeachment is not
even on the table. They wrote in their brief:
Speaker Pelosi has steadfastly denied that the House's investigations are in
any way related to impeachment. In March, she unequivocally told the
Washington Post, 'I'm not for impeachment.' In late May, the Speaker
reiterated that 'any suggestion that Democrats are planning to pursue
impeachment 'simply isn't the truth.'" After she received the district
court's ruling in this case, the Speaker boasted that the Committee had
prevailed despite "the fact the House Democratic caucus is not on a path to
impeachment." Just four days ago, the Speaker again told senior Democratic
leaders that "she isn't open to the idea" of impeachment, and Chairman
Cummings "sided with Pelosi."
Is it not a source of shame for rank-and-file Democrats, whether on the left
or in the "center," that Trump lawyers are citing Pelosi's refusal to
impeach him as their defense in court? As their justification for ignoring
congressional subpoenas?
Meanwhile, Pelosi herself continues to duck and dodge the arguments in favor
of impeachment - even when she happens to be the one making them. "The thing
is that, he every day practically self-impeaches by obstructing justice and
ignoring the subpoenas," she told the Times.
Sorry, what is she on about? I may not be a U.S. citizen yet, or speaker of
the House of Representatives for that matter, but I have read the U.S.
Constitution from beginning to end and I have yet to come across the clause
that refers to "self-impeachment."
So forget the "you-go-girl memes for literally clapping back at Trump" that
Dowd fawns over in her interview with the speaker. It is time for liberals
and leftists who lambast Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to admit to
themselves that the hippie-punching Pelosi has become a Trump enabler too.
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