A small but expanding group of Democrats across the party’s ideological spectrum are preparing to push Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to accept the $1.8 trillion coronavirus economic stimulus plan proposed by Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin last week, citing escalating concerns about unemployment and ongoing struggles of Americans. Two members of the Democratic caucus, Reps. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) and Peter Welch (D-VT), have privately discussed their desires for the California leader to accept the deal put before them and are now ready to make those pleas public, The Daily Beast has learned. While many Democrats are happy to back Pelosi’s position, those […]
Nancy Pelosi
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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi lost her cool on Tuesday during an interview with CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer, calling the veteran newsman a Republican “apologist” and claiming he didn’t know what he was “talking about” after he pressed her over the long-stalled stimulus package. With the White House, House Democrats, and Senate Republicans still at a stalemate over the much-needed coronavirus relief funds—made worse by the president’s off-again/on-again approach—Pelosi rejected the Trump administration’s latest $1.8 trillion proposal, which is $400 billion less than what the House passed this month. The speaker further scoffed at it on Tuesday, saying President Donald Trump “only […]
Earlier this month, US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi was caught on camera without a protective mask while visiting a closed hair salon in San Francisco, California, amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, violating local restrictions. Commenting on the incident later, the lawmaker claimed that the whole thing was a “set up”. San Francisco salon owner Erica Kious has announced that she is closing her business after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit last week, according to Fox News. “I am actually done in San Francisco and closing my doors, unfortunately…I started to just get a ton of phone calls, text messages, emails, […]
The Senate race in Massachusetts is blue on blue in a blue state so the seat will remain safely Democratic whatever the outcome in Tuesday’s primary. That’s little solace for Democrats torn apart by a race that forces them to choose between Joseph Kennedy III, a rising star in the party and heir to the storied Kennedy legacy, and incumbent Senator Ed Markey, a champion of progressive causes in the House and Senate for 47 years—longer than Kennedy, 39, has been alive. Kennedy has struggled to explain why he’s running, other than that he’s a Kennedy and would “leverage” the power […]
White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows doesn’t believe that anyone in America is concerned about a law that bars members of the Trump administration from engaging in political activities—or about the particularly enthusiastic breaking of that law during the Republican National Convention this week. “Nobody outside of the Beltway really cares—they expect that Donald Trump is going to promote Republican values and they would expect that Barack Obama, when he was in office, that he would do the same for Democrats,” Meadows told Politico on Wednesday morning, calling concerns by ethics experts “a lot of hoopla.” But long before joining […]
The crisis at the Postal Service has been building and accelerating for months with virtually no official response. Over the past two weeks, however, it reached a crescendo that even the country’s remarkably confrontation-averse opposition party could not ignore. In a matter of days, overwhelming grassroots pressure pushed House Democrats from seemingly having no plan to executing a rapid return to Washington, D.C., getting a hearing with the postmaster general on the calendar for next week and winning a promise from Louis DeJoy to cease operational changes until after the election. But, despite these early wins, protecting the USPS will require […]
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) didn’t mince words on Sunday morning, declaring that she has no “confidence” in White House coronavirus response coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx, whom she blamed for President Donald Trump peddling coronavirus disinformation. Last week, during a closed-door meeting with White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, Politico reported that the speaker tore into Birx. “Deborah Birx is the worst. Wow, what horrible hands you’re in,” she reportedly exclaimed. Pelosi also accused Birx of “spreading disinformation” while simultaneously praising top infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci—who has found himself in Team Trump’s crosshairs […]
WASHINGTON ― As Congress works to reach a deal on their next stimulus package, trade groups are urging lawmakers to extend the window for reimbursing government contractor costs for COVID-19 connected disruptions and cost increases, set to close Sept. 30. Government contractors, “are continuing to face the same ‘ready state’ workforce sustainment challenges that justified” the initial authorization of reimbursements under Section 3610 of the CARES Act, the National Defense Industrial Association and seven other groups said in the latest letter Friday to lobby top congressional leaders. They called for the deadline to be moved to Dec. 31, 2020, in the […]
WASHINGTON ― The White House and Senate Republicans are nearing an agreement on a $1 trillion-plus economic rescue proposal that would also seek $21 billion for defense, according to a draft obtained by the New York Times on Thursday. The emerging GOP proposal would include $11 billion in payments to contractors under the Section 3610 of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act, which allowed firms serving the federal government to seek reimbursement for pandemic-related expenses. However, amid reports of internal divisions―over the defense money and other aspects―Republicans delayed the rollout to at least next week. Defense trade associations, along […]
Rep. Eliot Engel and President Barack Obama didn’t always see eye-to-eye on issues of foreign policy. The New York congressman, as staunch a Middle East hawk as there currently is in the Democratic Party, was the most high-profile House Democrat to oppose Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran, the biggest foreign policy initiative of his presidency. Now, Engel, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, is fighting for his political life amid a primary challenge to his left from Jamaal Bowman, a former high school principal. Obama administration alumni want him to know they haven’t forgotten his vote—and that they don’t […]
On Tuesday night, Trevor Noah addressed the Democrats’ kente cloth fiasco as only he could. “While the movement in the streets has been building up steam, Democrats in Washington have been scrambling for a way to respond. And yesterday, I think they’ve figured it out,” offered Noah. The Daily Show host then threw to footage of the Senate Democrats kneeling in the Capitol’s Emancipation Hall for 8 minutes and 46 seconds in honor of George Floyd—while inexplicably donning African kente cloths, even though Floyd is an American. The move was widely ridiculed on social media, with The Roots’ Questlove pointing to […]
It’s the highest-profile job listing in Washington these days: being the public face of one of the biggest government accountability projects in U.S. history. The gig entails five years of exhaustive work to safeguard trillions of taxpayer dollars. The successful applicant will have years of experience in public service, comfort with constant public criticism, and a vision for the job that’s acceptable to two sworn political adversaries with an abysmal working relationship. And the job’s main deliverable is nothing short of ensuring that a program meant to haul the U.S. economy back from the worst crisis since the Great Depression works […]
Trevor Noah is horrified that President Donald Trump is apparently taking hydroxychloroquine against the recommendation of the FDA. But he seemed equally appalled Tuesday night at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s reaction to that news. “I would rather he not be taking something that has not been approved by the scientists,” Pelosi said on CNN this week, “especially in his age group and in his, shall we say, weight group, morbidly obese, they say. So I think it’s not a good idea.” “Oh no, Nancy!” the Daily Show host said with his head in his hands after playing the clip. “‘Morbidly obese?’ […]
Even a global pandemic and economic crisis isn’t enough to break President Trump’s perception of the Democratic House as a den of haters and losers who care more about hurting him than about helping the American public. Asked on Tuesday why he wasn’t permitting members of his coronavirus task force to testify in front of the House, Trump responded that the chamber is a “set-up” that’s full of “Trump haters.” “They,” said Trump, “frankly, want our situation to be unsuccessful, which means death.” It was a remarkable bit of open political retaliation that not only undercut the White House’s official line—that […]