For House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, there’s nothing more unpleasant in Washington than dealing with President Trump. And compromising with him? That’s even worse. Rather than meet him halfway, Pelosi will always settle for getting nothing.
That’s what happened when Trump offered to legalize 700,000 young Hispanics who entered the United States as children. For that to happen, Democrats would have had to do one thing: approve spending to build the wall the president wants to build along the southwest border. Pelosi declined. Now, she refuses to trim her demand for $2.2 trillion in spending to ease the pain of the pandemic. Unless she cuts her spending target, she may wind up with nothing again.
Pelosi’s tactic is hard to understand, but I have a theory that explains it. It goes back to the declaration of the “resistance” in 2016 when Trump was elected. Hordes of Democrats joined in vowing to resist him and block his plans. This tactic wasn’t official Democratic policy, but it caught on. And it captured the deep loathing of Trump by Democrats, their commitment to thwarting him, and their fear of doing political business with him.
For Pelosi, the resistance imposes a psychological burden. It’s not that it requires her to meet personally with the president. The new spending bill is being negotiated between her and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Trump’s representative. Pelosi and Mnuchin appear to get along. They crafted the $3 trillion relief legislation passed in April.
But Pelosi is still under pressure to succeed in the new talks — that is, by spurning a compromise and insisting on a level of spending far in excess of what Trump and Republicans are comfortable with. That would vindicate her decision to negotiate with the Trump administration. A simple compromise on a new deal, or something close to it, might not relieve her of suspicions of being too easy on Trump. Thus, it’s unlikely she would accept an agreement close to that and, spurred by the resistance, take a walk instead.
Pelosi’s fear is being “soft on Trump.” In the Trump era, that’s the worst accusation one can make against a Democrat. And she’s been careful to avoid even a hint of it. Nor has refusing to reach an agreement with Republicans on COVID-19 relief harmed her reputation in elite circles or the media.
Oddly enough, the president could rescue Pelosi by helping to pass a “big” spending bill, one she could celebrate despite Trump’s insistence such a measure was his doing, not hers. “It’s very simple,” he said. “I want to do it even bigger than the Democrats.” Trump often uses the word “big” to describe what he prefers in a pandemic bill.
Senate Republicans don’t take him seriously on this flip-flop of his position. Nonetheless, Trump claims they will be “on board” if he proposes a bigger spending package.
But you couldn’t prove it by what the most powerful Republican on Capitol Hill, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, has said. He hasn’t flinched on his backing of a pandemic relief bill costing $500 billion. That’s $1.7 trillion short of what Pelosi has demanded.
“The legislation before us is neither Republicans’ nor Democrats’ idea of a perfect bill,” McConnell said. “I think we’re all clear on that. But it would move us past Speaker Pelosi’s all-or-nothing obstruction and deliver huge support, right now, for the most pressing needs of our nation.” But Senate Democrats have stuck with Pelosi.
“This has been the dynamic for months now,” McConnell said. “Republicans trying to pass common-sense policies that Democrats say they support … and Democrats replying that working people can’t get a dime unless Speaker Pelosi gets everything she wants.”
She wants $500 billion, almost a quarter of the money, to bail out state and local governments. A large share would go to New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, three of the wealthiest and most Democratic states in the country.
Not surprisingly, the media has sided with Pelosi and treats McConnell as the villain. A headline in the Washington Post said, “McConnell warning puts cloud over stimulus talks.” Pelosi? She’s golden. The New York Times said the White House has raised its “offer” to Pelosi to “nearly 1.9 trillion.” That’s only $300 billion less than Pelosi claims is necessary, but $1.4 trillion more than McConnell has in mind.
She’s not safe yet. As Sen. Dianne Feinstein told Amy Coney Barrett in 2017, her Catholic “dogma lives loudly within” her. In Pelosi’s case, the resistance “dogma lives loudly within” her, too. And will until Trump and Republicans are crushed.
Fred Barnes is a Washington Examiner senior columnist.
