Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) called Trump’s delay of stimulus payments so that his name could be printed on the checks shameful.
Transcript of Speaker Pelosi on CNN’s The Lead with Jake Tapper:
Jake Tapper. What’s your take on President Trump’s name appearing on these stimulus checks?
Speaker Pelosi. Shameful. Just as – in other words, people are really desperate to get a check. Let me put it in perspective. The three things that really anger the American people, there are others, but three of them are, one, that our first responders, our health care workers, our police and fire, our EMS, all the people in food and other essential workers, do not have the equipment that they need to keep themselves safe as they manage to attend to the needs of others, that they do not have the ventilators and other equipment to save lives that are in their charge. That’s one.
The second is, they want their checks. They want their unemployment check. They want their direct payment check that you’re talking about here. They want their PPP, the Paycheck Protection Program, checks to come forward, and they’re not seeing that.
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And the third thing they want is for us not to have any of the billions of dollars that have gone to big business to help keep people employed, they don’t want any of that to be used to enrich shareholders, buybacks, bonuses, dividends, CEO pay and the rest of that.
So, if you put those three things there, that’s what we do in the CARES Act, is to make all of this something that would happen. But, again, the entree, the door opening, the threshold to cross into opening up our economy, is through testing, testing, testing.
Video:
“Shameful.†House Speaker Nancy Pelosi reacts to President Trump putting his name on paper stimulus checks. https://t.co/IVVzemAR4b pic.twitter.com/gwRK4O6HHn
— The Lead CNN (@TheLeadCNN) April 15, 2020
People are desperate. They need to buy food, pay rent, pay their mortgage, utility and credit card bills are piling up, and Donald Trump withheld basic cash relief to them because he wanted his name to appear on the checks.
The coronavirus isn’t about Donald Trump. The American people need help, and Trump is busy trying to provoke a constitutional crisis over adjourning Congress.
People are suffering as this president continues to only think about himself.
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Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
