Transcript of Pelosi Weekly Press Conference Today

Washington, D.C. – Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi held her weekly press conference today in the Capitol Visitor Center.  Below is a transcript of the press conference:

Leader Pelosi.  Good afternoon.  Thank you, hearty ones, for coming back this afternoon.  We had votes for a couple of hours this morning, and I had hoped that the timing would enable us to meet then, but thank you for being here now.

The clock is ticking.  The time is passing.  Here it is – nearly June.  The American people want us to be working to address their priorities, to create jobs, to grow the economy, to pass the minimum wage, to pass comprehensive immigration reform.  And here we are: instead, Republicans are continuing to try to exploit the tragedy in Benghazi by pursuing another unnecessary investigation.  As I said yesterday: eight reviews, 25,000 documents, millions of taxpayers’ dollars later, it is hard to see what the purpose is of dragging this on and what the timetable is of dragging this on.

As I mentioned, because of the concern we had about how the Republicans would treat witnesses and their availability and documents, we thought it was necessary to have some watchdogs in the room.  I consider this sacred ground; Ambassador Chris Stevens, Sean Smith, Tyrone Woods, Glen Doherty – their memory, their families are in our hearts and in our prayers.

Two of those families have written to us to say: “Don’t go down this path, don’t do this again.”  And the American people; we shouldn’t put the American people through this to place doubts in their mind about the security of our country.  And, of course, on both sides of the aisle the interest in keeping the American people safe, and that includes our men and women in uniform, our diplomats, our intelligence community vote.

It is – again, we want transparency in how this is done.  We want fairness and balance in how it is done.  And that is why I am so proud that our very distinguished group of Members accepted my request for them to serve.  The Committee is unnecessary.  It brings a heavy opportunity cost.  It’s not cheap, the cost of time, when we should be doing other things, meeting the needs of the American people.

One thing we could be doing is passing immigration reform.  It is, what, 300 – what, in June, will be one year since the passage of the bipartisan bill in the Senate.  And here we are one year later.  “Wait until you see our principles, one by one, piece by piece.”  Nothing is what we have seen.

Eleven million people hoping for legalization and a path to citizenship; 1,100 people subjected to deportation every day; one person standing in the way of making progress.  That would be the Speaker of the House.  I know in his heart his intentions are good.  We just hope that we will see before the one year is out from the Senate bill some sign of life, some sign of intention, some bill that can come to the floor.  Because if a bill isn’t scheduled, or a hearing even isn’t scheduled on a bill that could possibly take us to conference, it’s clear that their intention is to do nothing, and that’s totally unacceptable.

We have a bill, 200 cosponsors – H.R. 15 – including three Republicans.  It is bipartisan.  Many more Republicans have told us they would vote for the bill.  Give us a vote, Mr. Speaker.  The votes are there.  Give us a vote.

In another display of indifference to the needs of the American people, the Republicans are proposing to take food out of the mouths of our children once again.  Republicans’ agriculture budget would overrule doctors and nutritionists so that school children eat fewer fruits and vegetables, and pregnant moms and babies just get more potatoes.  Now, potato is not a bad thing – it is a staple – but it is not everything you need for your diet.

It would also limit the summer feeding pilot program – that was so important – in rural areas, a program originally designed to find better ways to deliver food aid to low-income school children during summer months when school is out.  Millions of children throughout our nation rely on school breakfast and lunch for essential nutrition.  Excluding urban children from this pilot would serve only to penalize hungry children because of where they live.  This is not who we are, and I hope that we can work to restore the original intent of the pilot to cover children from both rural and urban areas.

And I salute the First Lady, Michelle Obama, for her leadership on child nutrition – so important to those children, their health, their education.  Children can’t learn when they’re hungry.  One of my motivations for even being in politics, as a mother of five, is the fact that one in five children in America lives in poverty; so many of them go to sleep hungry at night.  I think that’s totally unacceptable in the greatest country that ever existed in the history of the world.  Many people in government and politics are drawn to it because of that injustice.

As we prepare to commemorate Memorial Day, that beautiful day, our thoughts, of course, are especially with our veterans and their families.  Yesterday, the President also forcefully reiterated his commitment to get to the bottom of allegations of gross misconduct at some Veterans Administration sites across the country.  Democrats share the President’s outrage.  Our military leaves no one behind on the battlefield.  That’s what they say.  On the battlefield, we will leave no soldier behind.  And we said, when they come home, we leave no veteran behind.

The allegations of misconduct that have been made are completely and utterly unacceptable.  That behavior will not be tolerated.  Once we have the facts – and this has to be evidence based, and we know some things for sure already – there must and will be accountability.  But we must think in a bigger way, I believe, about veterans affairs.  When I became the Leader, before we had the majority, we planted a flag for our veterans.  We said: “This is going to be one of our top priorities, because we owe so much to our veterans.”  This was in 2005.  We met with the veterans service organizations to see what their priorities were.  There was a long list.  So we said: you have to prioritize so that we know what we have to go out there and fight for in the near term, and then add to that list.

Some of what we proposed got Republican support.  As you may recall, at that time when we wanted to expand the veterans budget and the rest, now in the minority, one of the Republicans – the Chairman of the Veterans’ Affairs Committee – Chris Smith was the Chairman of the Committee.  He supported some of our initiatives.  The Republicans deposed him as Chair and threw him off the Committee.  It wasn’t until we got the majority in 2007 that we were able to – sworn in in ’07 – that we were able to do many of the things, the advanced appropriation, so that veterans would not be at the mercy of some other arbitrary timetable of the veterans budget.  So many things over a period of time – Agent Orange and some of the other responsibilities that we have, PTSD – recognition of that and the need for that.

So it added to the workload of the Veterans’ Affairs Committee, and maybe they don’t have the absorptive capacity for it.  Maybe when we go into war, we should be thinking about its consequences and its ramifications.  You would think that would be a given, but maybe it wasn’t.  And so we go into a war – go into Afghanistan; leave Afghanistan for Iraq with unfinished business; and Afghanistan 10 years later.  We have all of these additional veterans.  In the past five years, two million more veterans needing benefits from the VA.  That’s a huge, huge increase.

And as Bernie Sanders said – I had the privilege of introducing the Commander of the American Legion to a joint session, House and Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, over on the Senate side – and in his opening remarks, he said: policymakers have to consider what this means after the war to veterans and their families.  So maybe we just have to take a bigger look.  Incrementally it is hard to absorb two million veterans in five years in addition to everything else – with additional needs like PTSD, Agent Orange, which we proudly added to the opportunities for veterans to get benefits.

We have the Affordable Care Act that is out there that’s providing resources for more federally qualified health clinics around the country.  Maybe we should take a look at how we deal with our veterans’ needs in a way that says: “Let’s help them closer to home,” whether that’s a federally qualified health clinic or in some other institution that provides health care closer to home – especially important for our veterans who live in rural areas.

I was here when we did – after 9/11, we decided we were going to establish a new department.  I happen to think that was not our most efficient work.  But I do think – I mean, it was like a camel, a horse drawn by a committee, this agency that had so much jurisdiction.  But, anyway, whatever I think of that, the fact is: we did establish another agency.  Maybe we should look at the VA – instead of thinking incrementally, to think entrepreneurially.  How do we get care extramurally, outside of the walls of the VA, to our men and women in uniform where they live, where they need, and in a timely fashion?

So I would hope that the committees of jurisdiction – the Veterans’ Affairs Committees in both the House and the Senate, the appropriators in both places, maybe even a piece of it is the Armed Services Committee – could take a look to see how we think in a bigger way about how we meet the needs of our veterans, instead of incrementally over time.  Because the incremental approach doesn’t work when you get two million more vets over the past five years.  The absorptive capacity is almost impossible.  And, most importantly, we must meet the needs of our men and women in uniform when they come home.  They are our heroes.

What hasn’t been talked about – we did that day at the Senate, and we did yesterday here in the Capitol: I had a reception to honor Elizabeth Dole, Secretary, Senator Elizabeth Dole, for her work with caregivers – probably five million caregivers in our country caring for our men and women in uniform, our veterans, when they come home, many of them with unseen scars.  It’s such a sad thing, many of the caregivers who were there yesterday.  They are largely – many of them receive no compensation for this, and yet five million people are caring for our men and women in uniform, another consequence of war that probably was not accounted for when we went into the war in Iraq and, well, Afghanistan, we were going in.  But we could have dealt with it, finished it, instead of starting another war and then prolonging another war.  But that’s another story.  You ask me, I’ll tell you what I think of that.

In any event, here we are wasting time on an unnecessary investigation.  If you look at the purpose as spelled out in the resolution, everything that is in there has been dealt with.  And if the thing to deal with is to have better protection at our embassies and facilities across the world, then let’s take that up in the proper committees of jurisdiction, the authorizing committees and the appropriating committees, where these resources would be voted.  But let’s not have a budget that squeezes all of that and then say we have to establish a committee to revisit all of the purposes that are spelled out here.

Been there, done that.  What’s the purpose, what’s the timeline, what are the milestones of success that we should be looking for?  That’s why we sent people to that Committee – not to validate it, not to give it legitimacy, but to try to give the American people some transparency, some sense of what is happening here.

All of it just a diversionary tactic for not being able to come up with anything good to create jobs, to grow the economy, to pass immigration reform, to do the things that we really need.  If we pass immigration reform, we would reduce the debt by almost a trillion dollars.  We would increase the GDP of our country.  It’s an economic issue.  You can make a business case for it.  Create jobs, grow the economy, do the right thing, honor our responsibilities to the American people.

Any questions?

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Q:  Madam Leader, you were talking about the need to sort of address the bigger problems within the Veterans Affairs Administration rather than doing it incrementally.  Can you sort of describe more about what you’re looking for?  Are you looking for the Veterans’ Affairs Committee in the House and the Senate to actually tackle legislation to overhaul the agency operations? 

Leader Pelosi.  Well, they have – there is some legislation in the House, perhaps in the Senate as well, but I speak from the standpoint of the House, that does talk about some overall veterans’ affairs.  But I am just saying in that context and – we have to think in a big way, because this is a very big challenge.  And, again, the fact that we can treat people in places other than the VA hospitals has to be streamlined.  We can’t have another backlog of people waiting for permission to go to a federally qualified clinic in their region.  So there has to be a comprehensive look at it.

But I think that it would be bipartisan agreement on some of it.  But let’s subject it to the test, see what works, and what, again, meets the individual needs of those people.  But I do think there’s some initiatives already in the works to say overhaul.  And I’m saying: let’s think bigger.

Q:  So you are looking for some congressional action?

Leader Pelosi.  Oh, yes.  No, I said I think the committees of jurisdiction should look at this.

Q:  Thank you. 

Leader Pelosi.  Not calling for a special committee.  But, you know what?  If that’s necessary at some point, it would certainly be more useful than the waste of time we’re doing on Benghazi.

Yes, sir.

Q:  Well, actually, just to follow up on that, because this morning Speaker Boehner was asked about Shinseki, and one of his portions talking about that was that it’s not just the guy at the top, it’s the entire system below him that’s at fault here, he said.  So it does raise a question that there may be some sort of agreements or a consensus about need to look at the entire system. 

But given that, politically, the competition has always been who can say they’re closest to veterans, how do you create the space for maybe trying to act on the consensus, if there is consensus, to take a look at the entire system, rather than just tinker around the edges this time?  Do you do a committee?  Do you do a special commission?

Leader Pelosi.  When you say “tinkering around the edges” – when we had the majority, we did not tinker around the edges.  We made some of the biggest progress for veterans in our country since the GI bill, and some of it was even bigger than that because our needs were greater since the GI bill in terms of allocation of resources, in terms of opportunity for our second GI bill that we had for our Iraq Afghan veterans, the Agent Orange initiative that is there.  The list goes on and on.  In fact, if you want me to, I’ll show you a film of how it was introduced at the American Legion conference several years ago about what we accomplished in the majority.  It was huge.

Q:  I’m not – there are more benefits now.  But the question of the system…   

Leader Pelosi.  “Tinker around the edge” – we are talking about going back five, six years.  And in that time, we have two million more veterans.  So what I am saying is, is that let’s take a look at the system.  You know, let’s take a look at the system.  What we did was drastic.  It wasn’t incremental.  But now, with additional two million more veterans.

And, by the way, the veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan, according to reports that just came in, are going to cost us four to five trillion dollars in their lifetime – four to five trillion dollars.  And of course, that doesn’t have any of the hidden costs of what it means to caregivers and their families, their opportunity costs of not being able to work because they are a caregiver at home.  So we have to look at this in – politics has no place in this.  It has to be at a place where we say what is necessary for this person, this person, this person, as we look at the staggering statistics to address them – so that they affect people one person at a time.

And I think that there is, there seems to be good cooperation on the veterans.  In other words, everything is relative, but the purpose of the Veterans’ Affairs Committee is something that I think both Democrats and Republicans value and would be willing to work together to go forward.  I am impressed by some of what the Republican Chairman Miller has said about some of these issues in our House.  And, of course, Bernie Sanders in the Senate – you can just imagine – he is so good.

But when I went there with the American Legion to introduce their commander, I was very impressed by the statements made by the Republican Senators on the Veterans’ Affairs Committee as well.

Q:  So you think that there wasn’t – trying to do something, system wide, that it wouldn’t necessarily get bogged down? 

Leader Pelosi.  I think that the public – again, transparency.  The more the public knows about any subject, the better we will do at addressing it.  President Lincoln, you have heard me say over and over, President Lincoln said: “Public sentiment is everything.”  Public sentiment is very aware and has definite opinions about what is going on now.  I think you do have to always be hopeful, extend the hand of friendship, see where you can find common ground.  This is our responsibility.  These people are our families, they are our veterans, they are our heroes.  And, as I say, that is why we planted a flag for them as one of the first things we did when I became Leader and when we became the majority and had the speakership and could move these initiatives.

Yes, ma’am.

Q:  On the issue of public transparency, the USA FREEDOM Act passed today.  It took a long time for Judiciary and Intel to be able to come together to pass this bill.  Do you think that there will be further reforms, or do you think that this bill is a satisfying middle ground for people? 

Leader Pelosi.  No.  I think that this bill is a compromise.  It passed out of committee, both committees, unanimously.  Some changes were made before it came to the floor that caused some unease for some Members.  But John Conyers, who led the way for the House Democrats on Judiciary, and Dutch Ruppersberger in the Intel Committee both recommended a “yes.”  And Conyers, his liberal – his progressive credentials are second to none here.  But I think it all is with the idea that more needs to be done.

Yes.

Q:  Madam Leader, may I follow on that?  You have had your clashes with the intelligence community in the past.

Leader Pelosi.  Yes, I have.

Q:  That is an understatement.  And you like to say that you have the scars to prove it.

Leader Pelosi.  I do.

Q:  Given some of the concerns – not just on your side of the aisle, but largely on your side of the aisle – the language of this reform bill is going to allow exploitation eventually by an aggressive intelligence community and very smart attorneys for an aggressive intelligence community.  Do you have sympathy for that point of view?  And isn’t that a major concern?  And many of the interest groups, including Internet companies from your part of the world, have backed away from this bill because of those concerns.

Leader Pelosi.  We had a big, strong Democratic vote on our side.  Not two to one, but almost two to one in favor of the bill.  That was not an imprimatur to say this is the bill we would have written.  But it is a compromise.  And it is an attempt to move forward.  Now, some of that opposition came late because of some additions that were made after the committee action.  And I think that that will get some visibility – shall we say, some examination on the Senate side.

But we really have to make sure that, again, we have liberty and security.  It has always been the balance.  How do we protect the American people while respecting their rights and their privacy?  Now we have liberty, security, and the American brand name.  So we cannot have the American brand, which makes America the leader in the world on all of this technology, be questioned because of actions that might take place in the intelligence community.

Q:  But you have been so clear in the past about how you feel about the intelligence community’s willingness to mislead Congress.

Leader Pelosi.  Yes.

Q:  Why is it different in this case? 

Leader Pelosi.  Well, here is the thing.  Let me really be clear.  I have great respect for our men and women who serve in the intelligence community across the country and in our own country.  They are courageous, they protect our freedom, many of them risk their lives, and we owe them a great deal.

There are those, though, who are involved in some of these actions who are – who, quite frankly, what I was referencing when we had this conversation several years ago, was the direction of the White House – of the White House, of the Bush, especially Cheney White House, for aggressive collection and aggressive interrogation and the rest.  And you have no recourse because you can’t talk about it, and then they can say anything they want about what they told you or when they told you, or what they are doing.  And you are not at liberty to say: “No, I know you are doing something other than that.”  But I don’t think that that sprang from the community.  I think that sprang from the Cheney wing of the White House.  I think it was political.  And that is unfortunate.

However, when we got the majority, we passed legislation to make the intelligence community much more accountable to Congress; to make the Administration, whoever that might be – at the time, it was Bush Cheney – not be unilaterally able to just order things up.  That there had to be the third branch of government – the judicial branch had to be involved in decisions about collection and the rest.  And I can give you lists of the changes that we made.  We didn’t make every change because we still had to get signatures from President Bush.  And then when President Obama became president, we moved closer to a place that respected our need to protect our security as well as respect our privacy.

What you saw in the revelations that came out was harmful to our security, to our privacy, and to American brand name of technology, which we want to be preeminent in the world.  And we don’t want to be shut out of that.  Because that would hurt our security.  That would hurt our security.  So, I mean, it is – you don’t mess with the intelligence community without them coming at you some way or another.  I mean, that is just the way it is.  But the fact is you have to – you have to speak out.

And I think that this legislation is an improvement, a vast improvement over current law.  Is it everything that we need to do?  It is always a work in progress.

Yes?

Q:  I want to go back to the VA. 

Leader Pelosi.  We are going to have the Harvey Milk Stamp ceremony with the executive branch in a little bit.  That is why I have to go.  We are very excited about that.

Q:  On the VA, you talked about the bipartisanship with this Committee.  There is bipartisan frustration at the Veterans’ Affairs Committee that the Agency is not responding to the subpoena the Committee sent them.  As you know, some Democrats have called for Secretary Shinseki to resign.  Are you satisfied with the Administration’s response to these developments about these deaths at these hospitals because of these waiting lists?  Is it doing everything it should be? 

Leader Pelosi.  Let me say about the President of the United States – as I said, I have watched people on this issue, because this is a priority for us from day one.  This President, even before he came to Congress, had a major concern about America’s veterans.  And of course, when he became a Senator, he was part of some the initiatives we had to do, what I said earlier, to increase the benefits and opportunities of services for our veterans.

I know this is a high priority for him.  Now, he is Commander in Chief.  Now he sees the ramifications of some seeds that were sewn a long time ago when you have two wars over a long period of time and many, many more millions, more veterans.  And so, I know that he is upset about it.  We all know that.  We have been told that.  I have seen that firsthand.  None of us could be satisfied with how you can’t immediately address some of these concerns.  And you have to address them.  You have to correct them.  And you have to take action.  And some of that action might be in the courts.

You know, this is deadly serious.  General Shinseki is a four-star general.  I first met him on the field of battle in Bosnia a number of the years ago when I was a member of the Intelligence Committee visiting there.  A four-star general; a patriot; a person who cares very much about our veterans – he has fought side-by-side with them.  And I don’t know that if you wanted to – if you change somebody at the top, that means the system.  You know, in other words, some of this is intrinsic into the system.  And just changing people at the top may appear to represent change.  But it is the culture, it is the system.  And it is the challenge that they face: with all due respect to the VA in terms of some of the criticism we have had over the years, they have two million more veterans in the past five years.

So I think that they are dealing with it in a very important way: strong concern; looking for evidence, the evidence base, supporting what is – our Congresswoman Kirkpatrick called for an overview from the Inspector General and the rest of that.  Let’s just get the facts on what this is so that we know.  Now, it doesn’t mean we are going to find out if these things happened.  We know they did.  But what is the extent and what is the remedy?  And I leave it up to them to decide.  When Petzel – the administrator who had been there, Dr. Petzel, what, for 40 years or something like that – left, I thought that might be a sign of some things to come.  He was scheduled to leave anyway, just in a few months anyway.  But there is unease.  There is unease among the American people who care about this, there is unease among the veterans and their families, among the caregivers, among all of us who care about our veterans, whether in a public role or personally in our daily lives.

This has to be on a path that takes us someplace, not just a registering of concern.  And I have confidence in the White House, because I know how much this means to the President.  It always has, long before he was President of the United States.

But in the meantime, we could be passing, again, bills to create jobs.  Because one of the things we need to do for our veterans is to honor them with our work, honor the sacrifice that they made, and build a future worthy of their sacrifice, so that when they come home they can have jobs and they can have education and they can have opportunity.  That they can provide for their families – that they are not homeless in our communities.  And that number is coming down drastically under the Obama administration.

So let’s remember that our veterans not only get their benefits from the Veterans’ Affairs Committee and the Veterans Administration, but it springs from all of the other things in our society, whether it is Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, living wage, job creation, entrepreneurship, ability to create jobs because they can get credit and they can get contracts from the Federal Government and the rest.  There is plenty more that our veterans need in terms of their economic success for themselves, for their families, for their children that go beyond the [VA].

When we talk about the difference between parties here, we are not talking – we all value our veterans.  I respect that.  But the budgets that we put on the table have an impact on veterans to a large extent beyond veterans’ affairs.  When we did sequestration, I insisted, and others did too, that we separate veterans out so they were not affected – the Veterans Administration wasn’t affected by sequestration.  However, all the other cuts that are made have an impact on all Americans, many of them veterans.  Unemployment insurance, not in extending it: many of those people are veterans who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own and are seeking work again.  That is just one example.

So, again, we leave none on the battlefield when they at war; when they come home, we leave no veteran behind.  I hope their families will – enjoy is not the word – have, observe a Memorial Day that gives them hope.  That is our responsibility, to remove all doubt we will get the job done.  Thank you all very much.