House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi on Friday urged worried Democrats to relax and respect the office of the president, and said the United States would be able to survive Donald Trump’s presidency.
“Everyone should take a deep breath and just say the greatness of America can withstand anything, including the election of Donald Trump,” she said on NBC.
Almost 70 Democrats plan to boycott Trump’s inauguration on Friday, but Pelosi said she and other Democrats would nonetheless try to find common ground with the incoming president. Pelosi said she wishes Trump well and pointed to her time leading the House majority George W. Bush was president as a model for working with Trump.
“We worked with him. We opposed him on those issues [the Iraq war and privatizing social security], but we worked with him,” she said. “Our example is one where we have said, ‘We disagree here, let’s work together elsewhere.'”
Pelosi said the public will play a big role in keeping Trump and Republican lawmakers in check, even more so than they did when Bush was in office.
“What’s different from 10 years ago and eight years ago, the social media is such that the public is so in tune of what’s going on, and I see that as a plus,” she said.
