House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., is in a real tough spot, according to Rep. Henry Cueller, D-Texas.
Cuellar, Pelosi and every other House Democrat attended a meeting with President Obama on Friday morning, one that Obama used to push Democrats to support a trade package that would give him expedited trade negotiating authority.
But Cuellar said that while Pelosi stood next to Obama at the meeting, she didn’t speak. He said he wished Pelosi would have offered Democrats some direction on how to vote by now.
“She’s in a very difficult position,” Cuellar said. “I was hoping she would’ve said something.”
Pelosi is known to be cool to the trade package, which includes a trade adjustment assistance bill and legislation giving Obama trade promotion authority, or TPA. But she hasn’t said definitively what she’ll do in the vote.
The majority of her caucus and outside interest groups that Democrats traditionally rely on for campaign cash and get out the vote help vehemently oppose TPA, and the pending deals it seeks to pave the way for — the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership.
But at the same time, Cuellar said Pelosi “doesn’t want to see the president fail.”
“She’s been great” about the process, he added.
