Newly reinstated House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., will have not just one child in the White House to handle, but dozens in her own majority, apparently.
Pelosi already began her morning on clean-up duty, distancing herself comments by freshman Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., who went on a tirade calling to “impeach the motherfucker.”
“I don’t like that language, I wouldn’t use that language. I don’t … establish any language standards for my colleagues, but I don’t think it’s anything worse than what the president has said,” said Pelosi in response. “Generationally, that would not be language I would use, but nonetheless, I don’t think we should make a big deal of it.”
This was about as much as she could say without outright condemning a member of her own party. Pelosi has been trying to quell impeachment buzz from the moment she reclaimed the speaker’s gavel, spending her first day back on the job setting a high, respectable bar that grounds for impeachment must be “clearly bipartisan in terms of acceptance.”
“I keep coming back to the same word: the facts,” Pelosi told USA Today. “The facts will indicate a path, and I don’t think we should impeach a president for any political reason, but I don’t think we can ignore any behavior that requires attention and that was all based on the facts.”
Given the backlash of the Clinton impeachment and the new line drawn by the Senate that crimes or behavior that didn’t impede the presidency itself were not grounds for removal from office, Pelosi’s restraint is wise. But articles of impeachment were re-introduced by a House Democrat anyways.
Pelosi also defeated loud but ultimately ineffectual cries from the progressive wing of the party against the newly reinstated pay-as-you-go rule, which requires spending increases be offset with spending cuts or new taxes.
The speaker also shut down the demands of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., that Pelosi initiate a climate change committee and spur a “Green New Deal.” Pelosi instead created a Select Committe on the Climate Crisis as a consolation prize to progressives.
But Pelosi will have to remain on the hunt and whip Democratic dissidents into order. Ocasio-Cortez is already calling for a 70 percent tax on the super wealthy to fund her still hypothetical “Green New Deal,” and she’s agreed to sit down with progressive representatives to discuss “Medicare For all.” Pelosi, who expressed hesitation and distaste for abandoning a market system, can’t be too pleased.
As it turns out, the White House may not be the only place that needs an adult in the room.
