Last updated on July 18th, 2023 at 11:34 am
“This is psychological warfare,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told supporters at a morning breakfast in San Francisco, speaking about President Trump’s attacks on the values that unite Democrats.
Speaker Pelosi arrives to a standing ovation
The woman targeted in 137 Republican ads – Speaker Pelosi – got a hero’s welcome in her home district on Tuesday morning as the intensity of the impeachment inquiry against President Trump grows, and new CNN polling shows 1/3 of moderate Republicans want Trump to be impeached.
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Walking in to a standing ovation, the Speaker told her supporters, “At the beginning of our revolution, Thomas Payne wrote ‘The times have found us,’ and we believe the times have found us now.”
The Democratic Speaker talked about the foundation of separation of powers instead of the consolidation of powers that Trump is taking.
“This one person (Donald Trump) has decided and proclaimed without any shame that the second amendment says ‘I can do whatever I want.’ It doesn’t say that. It says the first amendment has the right of oversight and a check and balance, it is the first amendment because it is the important one, but he doesn’t see it that way.”
“Not to ruin your breakfast or anything,” Pelosi added to tense laughter over Trump’s lawlessness.
The Speaker was referencing President Trump saying the Constitution says, “I can do whatever I want as President.” Speaking at a rally on July 23, 2019, the Republican President said, “Then I have an Article 2, where I have the right to do whatever I want as President.”
“This couldn’t be more serious. If we don’t prevail in the courts in some of the cases we have, but I don’t know if they go up to the courts to Trump appointees. They might go against the Constitution,” the Speaker warned supporters.
Pelosi: I Never Changed My Mind On Impeachment
Speaking to the accusations that she changed her mind on impeachment, Pelosi said, “I never changed my mind, I always said we’re following the facts. And when we have the facts, we’ll be ready.”
“We are ready. And he (Trump) found that out,” Pelosi said, referencing the impeachment scandal surrounding Trump’s phone call to the Ukranian president asking him to help Trump cheat in the 2020 election by digging up dirt on Democrat Joe Biden.
“America is a set of values about equality and the rest, what he’s trying to do is change the mindset of America, making lawlessness a virtue.”
“We take an oath of office to protect the country against all enemies foreign and domestic,” the Speaker added, with an emphasis on “AND DOMESTIC.”
“Impeachment is about facts, and they relate to the Constitution of the United States. The facts were very clear in that phone conversation. We will be fair because of our love of America. But we’re ready.”
The room erupted in applause.
“And that’s all I’ll say about that,” Pelosi added, smiling.
Pelosi said, “The original sin is what he did in that phone call. He said it was perfect; it’s not.”
Pelosi said Democrats are legislating, litigating and investigating, and drew a sharp distinction between the issues that are under the umbrella of the impeachment inquiry and the issues that are mandated by elections, reminding people they need to turn out in elections.
The seriousness of the issues facing the country lent a tone of concerned appreciation for Pelosi’s leadership and opening of an official impeachment inquiry. There was no gloating glee; just a relief-tinged hero’s welcome for the woman who had faced mounting criticism, including in her own very liberal district, for not impeaching President Trump sooner.
The base wanted impeachment sooner based on a myriad of other problematic ethical and legal violations President Trump has committed, but the Speaker very carefully and deliberately took action only after the facts spelled out a clear case of Trump violating his oath of office to protect our country.
The contrast between Pelosi’s leadership and that of Trump is as stunning as it is disturbing.
Pelosi talks about legislation for the people and says if Democrats lose the House in 2020 because they took a stand to defend the country that’s OK; whereas Trump is abusing his power to silence the whistleblower and lashing out at the people investigating him, engaging in cover-ups of his own illegal behavior, and undermining the very freedoms upon which our country was built.
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Sarah has been credentialed to cover President Barack Obama, then VP Joe Biden, 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and exclusively interviewed Speaker Nancy Pelosi multiple times and exclusively covered her first home appearance after the first impeachment of then President Donald Trump.
Sarah is two-time Telly award winning video producer and a member of the Society of Professional Journalists.
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