House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said Monday that were the election held today, Democrats would “handily” win the majority in the House.
Speaking at a CNN-sponsored event in New York Mrs. Pelosi also defended her leadership, questioned President Trump’s leadership abilities and said the first bill out of the chute if her party does control the House next year will be to curtail campaign speech through spending.
The California Democrat also again said that should Hillary Clinton have won the presidential election, she would have stepped down. But she feels an obligation to have a woman at the seat when the country’s top leaders get together.
“We’ll see what happens in the presidential, coming up,” she said.
Mrs. Pelosi, agreeing with most prognosticators, said prospects for Democrats look good in the looming congressional elections.
“If the election were held today the Democrats would handily win the House,” she said.
Speaking to CNN’s Dana Bash she declined to say how Democrats would respond in the upcoming lame-duck session of Congress when Mr. Trump’s border wall funding will be a major issue. She did say that if the president has the votes, he’ll likely get his way — but suggested he’s fallen short on that support so far.
Mr. Trump has also said he and Democratic leaders could sit down and write a new immigration law in less than an hour. “Chuck & Nancy, call me!” the president said on Twitter over the weekend.
“What does he want us to call him?” Mrs. Pelosi said Monday, adding, “I have some names.”
She then quickly added she’s “always respectful” of the president, but acknowledged the seething anger that has spilled over into threats from within her party.
“I have some enthusiasm I have to curb in my own, shall we say, world,” she said, but added, “We are not like them. We are not going to do to them what they’ve done to us.”
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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