Pelosi Admits Democrats Held Up Relief Aid to Americans for 8 Months
'There was no respect for our heroes,' House speaker claims
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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi admitted her party has held up the coronavirus relief aid from struggling Americans for eight months in part "because there was no respect for our heroes."
During a "60 Minutes" interview, host Lesley Stahl remarked that Pelosi was not "known as a person who compromises" after being branded as slow-walking "despicable" by Republicans.
"No, I am," Pelosi responded.
"I'll compromise. We wanna get the job done. I'm mischaracterized by the Republicans that way, but that's a tactic that they use."
"But, we know we want results for the American people."
Stahl then noted they recently passed a $900 billion coronavirus relief package.
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Pelosi admitted it was stalled, but blamed Republican obstruction.
"Yours, too," Stahl responded.
"No, it wasn't obstruction," Pelosi snapped back.
"We held it up because there was no respect for our heroes, our state and local health care workers, police and fire, our first responders, our sanitation, transportation, food workers, our teachers, our teachers, our teachers."
WATCH:
60 Minutes' Lesley Stahl calls out Speaker Pelosi for refusing to compromise on COVID relief:
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) January 11, 2021
"You held out for eight months." pic.twitter.com/zsR29IXbsq
"They would not go down that path," Pelosi said.
Pelosi argued her case for the decision to hold up the aid package, which included $600 stimulus checks.
Stahl noted the Democrats called it a "mistake."
"They may have. But it isn't — it wasn't a mistake, and I would not, and nobody expects me to, to support something that solidifies injustice in our country," Pelosi said.
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Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., blamed Pelosi and Chuck Schumer for the aid package.
"I said back in July what the country needed was a package roughly of a trillion dollars focused on kids in school, small businesses, health care providers, and direct cash payments," McConnell said in December.
"We started advocating that in July and August. The talks were unproductive, so I essentially put that bill on the floor of the Senate in both September and October."
"Not a single Democrat supported it."
"Their view was, give us everything we want, or we won't give you anything."
"It's noteworthy that at the end, they finally gave us what we could have agreed to back in July," he continued.
"I think what held it up was, they did not want to do anything before the presidential election. I think they felt that would disadvantage the president."
In October, Neon Nettle reported the Democrat bill included taxpayer-funded relief checks for illegal aliens and new protections from ceratin deportations.
Later in December, Pelosi said Democrats would no longer fight for unrealistically-huge COVID-19 relief bills because they had a "new president."
The House Speaker later faced backlash after she announced a bill to federally legalize marijuana while ingoring the COVID-19 relief fund to help small businesses.
