House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., on Sunday said New York’s Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo and others around the country are “impatient” for federal aid during the coronavirus outbreak, but denies it was a “concession” to leave it out of the latest relief bill.
In an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Pelosi said “It’s no use going into what might have been.”
“We will have state and local [relief] and we will have it in a very significant way,” she said of future relief.
“The governors are impatient. I'm a big fan of Governor Cuomo. My own [Democratic] governor, Gavin Newsom… state and local governments have done their job magnificently. They should be impatient. Their impatience will help us get an even bigger number.”
Leaving such aid out of the latest bill, however, “wasn't a concession,” she insisted.
“I heard what Andrew Cuomo said and I respect him as a governor, but the fact is, they wanted [aid] for [Paycheck Protection Program]. We support the PPP, we were part of developing it. .. But we wanted to include more people, more money for the program, and the hospitals. It was always an interim bill.”
Pelosi said she’s “all for remote voting by proxy” as Congress is away from Capitol Hill during the outbreak.
“I want it to be bipartisan,” she said. “The Republican leader, [California Rep. Kevin] McCarthy has assured me he will consider this, he's not there yet, he could be there.”
She also took a swipe at President Donald Trump, saying his closure of the border to China early on was not effective.
“Actually tens of thousands of people were still allowed in from China,” she said. “So it wasn't as it is described as this great moment. There were Americans coming back, green card holders coming back. But there were tens of thousands. If you're going to shut the door because an evaluation of an epidemic, then shut the door.”
And she slammed him for his rumination on disinfectants for use in humans against the coronavirus.
“We just have to have a path to the future if and when we can open up,” Pelosi said of relieving the nation’s widespread lockdown. “Testing, testing, testing, tracing, tracing, tracing. Isolation. And when we're ready, we'll go out there. But there's planning. It's a lot of time. What the president said, disinfectant in the body, they call that embalming, that's the medical term.”
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