FILE – In this June 18, 2018, file photo, Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., listens during a hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington. Kennedy, who just returned from a congressional trip to Russia warned against trusting President Vladimir Putin, saying that dealing with the Russian government is like “dealing with the mafia.” Kennedy, recently went with other GOP senators to see first-hand the Russian economy and meet with government officials. But the meetings, ahead of President Donald Trump’s planned summit with Putin on July 16, turned “cantankerous” at times, he said. He described Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov as a “bully.”(AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)

If one needs a vivid and unmistakable description of something, Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) always comes through. In an interview with Fox News’ Shannon Bream Wednesday night, Kennedy first opined that Bernie Sanders supporters are “probably mad as a mama wasp” about Sanders’ decision to suspend his presidential campaign, then made reference to the “arugula and tofu crowd” before getting to his most remarkable phrase of the night.

While Bream was asking questions about the impact of coronavirus shutdowns on the Louisiana economy, Kennedy brought the topic back to the relief/stimulus bill that was pending in Washington, D.C., and Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s role in slowing down the process by adding loads of pork and poison pills into the negotiations, saying:

“The small business program we know is working, and that’s where we ought to concentrate our firepower….I hope that the Speaker will reconsider her position and let us pass this.”

(Spoiler alert: She didn’t.)

Bream then asked him why Pelosi, as a member of the House of Representatives, should pay any attention to Republican senators.

“From day one, the Speaker has not only called the shots for the House, but she’s tried to call the shots for the United States Senate.”

Say what? Is he calling Chuck Schumer something that rhymes with luck?

Nancy Pelosi is using this terrible financial and public health crisis to attempt to ram through legislation that would never pass otherwise and doesn’t care that there are people who cannot pay their rent and small businesses going belly up. Like many of us, Sen. Kennedy has had enough of both Pelosi’s antics and the business shut-downs and had the perfect words to describe what has happened:

It’s time to think about the American people and the next generation, not the next election. We’ve got to get this economy back on its feet. The coronavirus can kill you, but so can poverty. And we have waterboarded the American economy, and we’ve gotta stand it back up. And until we can do that, we have got to get some money to the American people and to the American business community. It’s as simple as that.

Nancy Pelosi doesn’t know a damn thing about poverty; if perhaps she was acquainted with it in her younger years she surely has no memory of it now. There are families out there who can’t pay rent or buy food. There are small business owners who, after spending years working around the clock and barely scraping by, are finally financially stable – or were until they were forced to close their doors, perhaps unjustifiably, given how the models haven’t been close to reality. That’s a debate that’s definitely going to heat up on Main Street, since during this crisis everyone is glued to the daily numbers and there’s no way to hide how wrong the models have been.

The Epidemiologist vs Economic debate is starting to heat up. It's tough to say who is right but when your model of 100k-240ks deaths is so far off the map you're going to have a tough time selling the economics people you're right. Record unemployment, 6T in printed $ added — Alex (@Ajsoti) April 9, 2020

While this grinds on, unemployment will keep going up. But if small business owners knew they had relief coming – and a decent idea of when – they could keep people on the payroll and blunt some of the damage that’s occurring every day Nancy Pelosi holds the American people captive, using their pain as leverage to get funding for her special interests as she pours water on the face of the American economy.

Kennedy’s waterboarding description is about 6 minutes into this clip he tweeted.

.@realDonaldTrump is right about the World Health Organization. If you turned President Xi upside down and shook him, the WHO would fall out of his pocket. China lied, a lot of people have died, and the cover up is not right. pic.twitter.com/ItFlwTbdXr — John Kennedy (@SenJohnKennedy) April 9, 2020