Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) denounced House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the "left of Lenin" policies she has proposed in a coronavirus relief bill. Kennedy said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer "did not have the oranges" to tell Pelosi to pass a clean bill.



"I thought that we in Congress had hit rock bottom with the Kavanaugh hearings," Kennedy told FOX News host Sean Hannity. "But with this latest prank, I think we've hit rock bottom and started to dig. What Speaker Pelosi and Senator Schumer have done is breathtakingly, breathtakingly irresponsible."



"We had this deal practically put together. Speaker Pelosi flew in with her left of Lenin, bridge to nowhere proposals and Senator Schumer did not have the oranges to tell her to back off. And we were off to the races," Kennedy said Monday on 'Hannity.'



"Now, the American people reacted," he said. "Anger is just an expression of pain and the American people are hurting and after this latest stunt they are angry. And my understanding is that the Speaker has backed off of a lot of her left of Lenin proposals."



"This bill has got to pass the House and the Speaker has swept the Ocasio-Cortez wing of her party into a frenzy. And now, to keep from bringing the entire House back, she's got to go back to the Ocasio-Cortez wing and explain to them why they should agree to this with what we call unanimous consent," Kennedy said.



Kennedy said he does not sympathize for Pelosi, who has to go back to the AOC-wing of the party and say they will not use the bill to pass non-coronavirus items.



"Now, I don't have any sympathy for the position in which the Speaker has put herself, but I do have sympathy for the American people and the small business people and, yes, the larger companies that employ tens of thousands of Americans. They need this bill passed and we need to do it now," he said.



"My other worry is that at some point the American people are going to lose patience and say, look, we know the coronavirus can kill you, but so can poverty and so can hunger," Kennedy said. "And so we're going to go back to work. And that's going to make the health side even worse."