House Speaker Nancy Pelosi seems to have discovered a way to get the press to pay attention to the Democratic Party’s legislative agenda, which (if you can believe it) involves more than just #resisting President Trump.
It is a simple bait-and-switch. Lure reporters in with the promise of new revelations about the impeachment inquiry against the president. Use journalists’ thirst for all things anti-Trump against them. Once Pelosi gets them in the room, she has a captive audience. She can hit them with details of tedious legislative proposals that will go nowhere amid impeachment and which would otherwise go largely ignored by a news media addicted to lurid innuendo and flashy rumors.
The speaker arrived Wednesday at her weekly news briefing flanked by a guest: House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff. He joined Pelosi to give a brief and insubstantial update on House Democrats’ impeachment efforts. Schiff’s presence had been teased the night before, setting off a round of excited speculation in a press that is eager for movement on the impeachment front. Hoping for something juicy, newsrooms sent everything they had to the Pelosi briefing. As a result, the normally sparsely attended session was absolutely packed with journalists. It even got live television coverage.
The Wednesday briefing was so packed with reporters, in fact, that the speaker herself wryly noted she should bring the committee chairman along more often.
“So, I know many of you are here, some of you are regulars, many of you are not, and I said to Mr. Schiff, ‘Maybe you should come to all of our meetings,” Pelosi said. “We might get some coverage for what we’re trying to do for the American people.”
Pelosi used the majority of her presser to do exactly what she does every week: address House Democrats’ pet legislative causes.
“H.R. 3 is important because, I’ve said to you before, across the country you can see grown men cry at meetings because of the cost of prescription drugs,” Pelosi said. “It is almost impossible for them to be healthy and financially healthy with the rising cost of prescription drugs.”
She continued, turning her attention to Democratic efforts to ensure that the United States-Mexico-Canada trade agreement will be “strengthening America’s working families and farmers who are very affected” by the deal.
Pelosi has been trying like hell since Trump was elected to keep the press and her fellow Democrats focused on the party’s legislative agenda. The tactic of baiting journalists with Schiff worked, at least once.
