OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said former President Donald Trump “has always been about projection” after Trump blamed her for the January 6 attack in an interview with “Meet the Press.”
“He knows he’s responsible for that, so he projects it onto others,” Pelosi said during an interview on “The Sunday Show with Jonathan Capehart” on MSNBC. “The assault on the Capitol building, the assault on the Constitution, the assault on our democracy, shame on him. However, he always projects.”
The former House Speaker also slammed Trump’s claims that she refused soldiers on the day of the attack.
Pelosi stated that one of the reasons she is running for re-election to the House is the importance she places on the upcoming presidential election.
Below is a transcript of the exchange:
CAPEHART: “All right, first things first before we talk about your run for reelection, the former president of the United States, Donald Trump, on ‘Meet the Press’ says this, and I’m quoting you directly — him directly, ‘Nancy Pelosi is responsible for January 6th.’ He is blaming you for the attack on the Capitol that he instigated. Your response?”
Pelosi: “Well, the former occupant of the White House has always been about projection. He knows he’s responsible for that, so he projects it on to others. His instigation of an insurrection, an assault on our Constitution, the day we were supposed to approve — well, and we did — the work of the Electoral College, results of the Electoral College, the assault on the Capitol Building, the assault on the Constitution, the assault on our democracy, shame on him. However, he always projects. Now, he used to say, ‘Well, she turned down my troops.’ No, we begged him. Chuck Schumer and I begged him to send the troops again and again. His secretary of the army, McCarthy, another McCarthy, and acting secretary of defense just said, ‘Oh, too many obstacles, it’s bureaucratic, it’s this, we can’t do it.’ They know their exposure, so they project.”
CAPEHART: “So he says also in that interview, ‘Nancy Pelosi turned down 10,000 soldiers.’”
Pelosi: “Yeah, well these Trumplytes were attacking the Capitol, fighting the police, threatening my life and the life of the vice president. We’re turning down the troops? Why — there is a sickness here. There has to be an intervention and that intervention has to be the election, which we have to win. That’s one of the reasons I am running again, to fight for our democracy, which is at stake if he’s on the ballot.”
CAPEHART: “Let’s talk about — I was going to ask you, why are you running again? Is it a feeling of responsibility that you can’t step away now because democracy is at stake?
Pelosi: “Well, two things. First of all, for 20 years, my district, my people of San Francisco have given me the latitude, 20 years, to be speaker or leader. That meant for 20 years, every week, every day, I was responsible for what happened on the floor in terms of developing legislation or countering what they were doing. Every day it was about the reelections, it was about policy, the politics, and the aspirations of our members, meeting the needs of the American people. So now we have some challenges in our district, which we will deal with, but I can’t say that now that the glory days are not there, I’m leaving. There’s no honor that my members could’ve given me, whether it was speaker, leader, or whip, that matches the thrill I get when I go on to the floor and say I speak for the people of San Francisco.”
CAPEHART: “When you mentioned the challenges that the people of San Francisco face, what are you talking about specifically?”
Pelosi: “Right then, I was just talking about something that we have around the country, the issue of fentanyl, it is a deadly challenge to the safety of people. It brings violence with it, when people sell it, so we are engaged in something with the Department of Defense called Operation Overdrive to address that. It is a small part of the city, a matter of blocks, but the press decides that they are going to have a field day talking about San Francisco. We have to recover from Covid in terms of people working from home, but at the same time we have to deal with this issue in a way that could be a model for the country.”
CAPEHART: “Let me talk about two topics in one question, 2024 and the president’s reelection effort, and this impeachment inquiry that Speaker McCarthy has called for. Your reaction to this inquiry, which, from all we’ve seen, there is no evidence that there is any wrongdoing or connection between the president and his son.”
Pelosi: “If I just may, before we go to that, because I’m not sure what the time will be, let me just say that as we are here, we have workers on strike in a number of industries in our country. But right now, you said you were going to have Shawn on, Shawn Fain — “
CAPEHART: “The UAW president.”
Pelosi: “The UAW president. This is really something so important to all of us in the country. These workers, just think of this, the CEOs of these countries, and companies, make probably in one month what these workers make in a lifetime. That’s just unjust. Years ago, it was 20 times, now it’s 10 times that, and over 200 times as much for the CEO as it is for the worker. Those profits that they say they are rewarding would not happen without the workers. So let us pray that they will come and make some progress on this respectful of the workers. Sherod Brown says it’s over 300 times as much, but whatever it is, one-month pay for the CEO, a lifetime paid to the workers. Just not fair. So getting back to this, impeachment is deadly serious. This is a remedy that our Founders put in the Constitution for a rogue official. They could foresee we would have a rogue president of the United States, they couldn’t foresee that we would have a rogue president and a rogue Senate, rogue Congress. But nonetheless, for them to use this in the frivolous way that they are is really a disservice to our country, to our Constitution. They have no — they’ve had months, almost this whole year, this whole time, nine months, going on nine months of investigations to come up with nothing when. When we engaged in impeaching the president — because we had no choice, he was — we were accusing him of high crimes and misdemeanors which were evident, even Republican senators voted for it in terms of Ukraine, in terms of the assault on the Capitol. But this is almost silly, except that it’s so serious.”
WATCH:
