Pelosi: This is 'blackmail'

Nancy Pelosi is “disappointed” in Barack Obama for backing a bill she described as a form of “blackmail” on the part of Republicans.

The California Democrat objects to two provisions in the trillion dollar spending deal, including one that would roll back Dodd-Frank financial services reforms. She called the looming backdrop of a potential shutdown a form of blackmail.


Pelosi, an often loud supporter of the president, pushed back when the White House announced support for the package.

“I’m enormously disappointed that the White House feels that the only way they can get a bill is to go along with this. That would be the only reason I think they would say they would sign such a bill,” she said.

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Pelosi also urged Democrats to block the bill, anyway.

“It is clear from this recess on the floor that the Republicans don’t have enough votes to pass the CRomnibus,” Pelosi wrote. “This increases our leverage to get two offensive provisions of the bill removed: the bank bailout and big money for campaigns provision.”

“We’re being asked to vote for a moral hazard. Why is this in an appropriations bill? Because it was the price to pay to get an appropriations bill,’ said Pelosi. She later added, “This is a ransom, this is blackmail. You don’t get a bill unless Wall Street gets its taxpayer coverage. It’s really so sad.”

Republicans struggled to pass a procedural rules vote Thursday afternoon that would allow the House to vote on the broader funding bill. No Democrats supported the measure so Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Republican Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) were forced to find 214 of their members to pass the rule.

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The margin on the government spending bill is expected to be razor thin. And Pelosi is attempting to limit the number of Democrats forced to support the bill to as low a number as possible.

She said the changes to the 2010 Dodd-Frank law would “weaken a critical component of financial system reform aimed at reducing taxpayer risk.”

“We are….being blackmailed, being blackmailed, to vote for an appropriations bill. I would not put the name of my constituents, in my district, next to this bill,” Pelosi said during a speech on the House floor.

Democratic negotiators agreed to the two policy riders before the legislation was unveiled on Tuesday night but Pelosi and other Democrats have still railed against their inclusion since.

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