Democrats in Congress will, of course, find every reason not to pass meaningful legislation on police reform because it would interrupt their favorite line about President Trump basically being a member of the Ku Klux Klan. But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi looked especially silly when she insisted on national TV that that wasn’t the case.
Just a few hours after Senate Republicans, led by Tim Scott of South Carolina, released their reform bill, Pelosi was asked on CNN about Democrats who most assuredly won’t want to compromise because, “Why would they give the president, perhaps, a victory when they could hope that a Democrat is in the White House and this might be something that Democrats could champion?”
Pelosi said there were no such Democrats.
“That’s not true,” she said. “That’s not so. I don’t know if you have an example of one person or two, but that is not the case. We’re talking about life and death.”
I’ve got one example! Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina. I know that as majority whip, he’s only the third most powerful Democrat in the House, but he’ll have to do.
In an interview on Fox News just one day prior, he criticized Trump’s own proposal on police reform announced this week and further said that he gave the president no credit on other actions the White House has taken that directly benefit minorities, blacks in particular.
“Much too little and does not go far enough,” Clyburn said of Trump’s reform proposal which would withhold federal funding for police departments that didn’t adopt higher standards for officers’ use of force and establish a record system for police misconduct.
Asked about Trump signing into law permanent funding that had lapsed for historically black colleges and universities, or the First Step Act which made changes to prison sentencing, both of which have long been dear to Democrats, Clyburn wouldn’t budge. And in doing so, he ended up looking both ridiculous and ignorant.
“None of that is true,” he said, even though all of it was true. But how did he know it wasn’t true? Because, he said, “I went to an HBCU” and “I have been fighting for HBCUs all my life. This is not the most money that’s ever gone to HBCUs.”
OK, congressman, but this was about whether he did, in fact, sign those things into law and not really about where you went to school.
But of course, he couldn’t credit Trump for doing anything for black people. That might hurt turnout for Democrats in the fall!
On the First Step Act, Clyburn, perhaps unaware of how major legislation actually becomes law, said Trump doesn’t get any kudos for that because all he did was sign it.
Wow, is that all?! Say, how come former President Barack Obama didn’t just sign the same bill? He didn’t do it when Democrats had both chambers of Congress. No, it was a Republican Congress with a Republican president that did that.
“These guys [Democrats] have been working on stuff in that bill for I don’t know how many years,” said Clyburn. “How long have we been trying to get these things done?”
Yes, that’s the point. Democrats such as Clyburn had been unsuccessfully “trying to get these things done” until Trump got Republicans behind it.
Pressed on that point, Clyburn told anchor Brett Baier, “I didn’t come here to argue with you. But you can argue if you want to. It’s just not true.”
Pelosi said she doesn’t know of any Democrat who’s interested in the political advantages of refusing to pass a police reform bill. She should check Clyburn’s office.
