Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi told Republicans Wednesday on the House floor that they looked ‘miserable’ and said they had turned the chamber into a ‘puppet show’ at the behest of former President Donald Trump.
Pelosi was the final Democrat to speak during the afternoon’s debate over whether California Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff should be censured over his role in the House’s Russia probe of Trump.
A similar measure targeting Schiff, the former top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, who House Speaker Kevin McCarthy pushed off the panel earlier this year, failed in the House last week.
‘Today we are on the floor of the House where the other side has turned this chamber – where slavery was abolished, where Medicare and Social Security and everything were instituted – they turned it into a puppet show,’ Pelosi said. ‘A puppet show.
‘And you know what?’ the 83-year-old lawmaker continued. ‘The puppeteer, Donald Trump, is shining a light on the strings.
‘You look miserable. You look miserable,’ she directed at her colleagues across the aisle.
Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi told Republicans Wednesday on the House floor that they looked ‘miserable’ and said they had turned the chamber into a ‘puppet show’ at the behest of former President Donald Trump
Pelosi then joked that she was happy House Republicans were giving the matter their attention.
‘The only advantage to all of this is that instead of reversing what we did on the [Inflation Reduction Act] to save the planet, or reversing what we did to reduce the cost of prescription drugs, you’re wasting time,’ she told her GOP colleagues.
Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, an acolyte of Trump, has been leading the effort to censure Schiff, who is running for U.S. Senate in California.
While last week the effort failed, several more Republicans signaled they would vote for the resolution after a provision was removed that would fine Schiff $16 million if the House Ethics Committee determines that he had lied.
Luna spoke on the House floor next, pooh-poohing what Pelosi had just said.
‘Again, I would like to say this is not about Donald Trump,’ Luna protested.
‘This is about holding accountability for someone who exploited their official position, had access to information that most members of Congress do not have access to. And bringing accountability back to the American people – so regardless of whatever the gentlewoman from California says, or anyone else, you guys are not being honest about the focus of this resolution and this censure,’ the 34-year-old lawmaker added.
The resolution says that Schiff held positions of power during the Trump administration and ‘abused this trust by saying there was evidence of collusion between Trump’s campaign and Russia.’
‘By repeatedly telling these falsehoods, Representative Schiff purposely deceived his Committee, Congress, and the American people,’ it said.
House Republicans, under Intelligence Committee Chair Rep. Devin Nunes, initially started a probe in 2017 into Trump’s ties with Russia – along with the Department of Justice.
The DOJ probe was handed over to Special Counsel Robert Mueller by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, as Trump’s first Attorney General Jeff Sessions had recused himself from the case due to his work on the then-president’s 2016 campaign.
The Mueller report found ‘numerous links between the Russian government and the Trump campaign’ but couldn’t prove legally that there was a ‘conspiracy’ between the two entities.
Additionally, the DOJ did not recommend criminal charges.
Schiff’s involvement put him on Trump’s radar and earned him the nicknames ‘little pencil-neck’ and ‘shifty Schiff.’
Later on in the Trump administration, Schiff was the lead prosecutor during the Republican president’s first impeachment.
On Wednesday, Schiff was defiant.
‘To my Republican colleagues who introduced this resolution, I thank you. You honor me with your enmity. You flatter me with this falsehood,’ Schiff said Wednesday on the House floor. ‘You, who are the authors of a big lie about the last election, must condemn the truth-tellers and I stand proudly before you.’
Schiff shamed McCarthy for spending the last two weeks on the resolution instead of dealing with homelessness or opioid addiction, calling it a ‘hollow sop to the MAGA crowd’ and ‘petty political payback.’
‘I will not yield. Not one inch,’ Schiff said.
