CNN "The Lead with Jake Tapper" - Interview with Nancy Pelosi [16:15:07-16:30:00]

Interview

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Speaker Pelosi, thanks so much for joining us. We're glad that you're -- you're well and safe.

Let me start with some of the breaking news here. The White House is working on suggesting that some parts of the country can begin relaxing guidelines so people can get back to work on May 1st.

[16:20:10]

"Politico" is reporting that in a phone call with Democrats, you called that, quote, almost sinful. Is that true? And why?

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): I do believe that any return to opening up everything has to be based on health care, the good health of the American people.

Let me first say, though, what a sad time for all of us just to hear the story of the NYPD officer who helped save people or responded to 9/11, losing his life to the coronavirus. It just drives home every single story. The numbers are staggering but each individual story is just heartbreaking to hear.

So, as we have discussions about how we open up our economy, this or that, we understand that this is an assault on the lives and the livelihoods -- livelihoods of the American people, and that the -- any decision to open up would be one that should be science-based and healthcare-based, and what it means.

And that's why it's so important to come back to those three words -- testing, testing, testing. On March 4th, we passed a bill that we prepared in February, brought to the floor and passed on March 4th, which was called "Testing, Testing, Testing." Here we are nearly a month and a half later, and we still do not have

the appropriate, adequate testing for us to identify and take inventory of the challenge that we face, to have the racial data to show where -- how this is happening and where. So, really, we have been delinquent. We have to have a change in that.

It's one thing to say, well, we didn't -- it wasn't done right. But there's no excuse for us to not do it right as we go forward. It's so obvious. Almost sinful.

TAPPER: What's your take on President -- what's your take on President Trump's name appearing on these stimulus checks?

PELOSI: Shameful. Just as -- you know, in other words, people are really desperate to get a check.

Let me put it in perspective. The three things that really anger the American people, there are others, but three of them are: one, that our first responders, our health care workers, our police and fire, our EMS, all the people in food and other essential workers do not have the equipment that they need to keep themselves safe as they manage to attend to the needs of others, that they do not have the ventilators and other equipment to save lives that are in their charge. That's one.

The second is, they want their checks. They want their unemployment check. They want their direct payment check that you're talking about here. They want PPP, the Paycheck Protection Program, checks to come forward, and that they're not seeing that.

And the third thing they want is for us not to have any of the billions of dollars that have gone to big business, to help keep people employed, they don't want any of that to be used to enrich shareholders, buybacks, bonuses, dividends, CEO pay and the rest of that.

So if you put those three things there, that's what we do in the CARES Act, is to make all of this something that would happen. But again, the entree, the door opening, the threshold to cross into opening up our economy, is through testing, testing, testing.

TAPPER: So, Speaker Pelosi, let me ask you about the PPP, the Paycheck Protection Plan. Specifically, the Small Business Administration is saying that they're going to run out of money for these emergency loans to small businesses. Democrats in the Senate have been holding up an infusion of $250 billion into the program. They want more guarantees that the money will go to smaller businesses, not just bigger businesses. They also want more funding going to states and hospitals and the like.

What do you make of this? I mean, if the SBA is really going to run out of money today, it sounds pretty dire. What's your response?

PELOSI: Well, the response is that a week -- last Tuesday, a week ago from yesterday, the secretary of the treasury called me and said, I need a quarter trillion dollars in 48 hours for the PPP. And we support the PPP. It was part of our putting together CARES 1.

We were successful, the Democrats in the House and Senate, in turning -- flipping it from a corporate triple down bill to a workers-first bubble up bill. And part of it was that Paycheck Protection Program.

But we want it to work for everyone. What we were finding out, in just even the first hours of it, was that the initiative -- it was not working for the, shall we say, underbanked.

[16:25:07]

So we said, just give us 10 percent of the money for those who may not have a sophisticated banking relationship, who are getting cut out of this. First come, first served, usually to the friends of the bank.

We don't want to make the banks the villains in this. They're doing a job. It's covered, they have no exposure. It's covered by the Small Business Administration, have no -- anything to do with their balance sheet because it's off -- these loans are off the books.

And if people comply with what the criteria are, these loans can be forgiven. Very good.

However, they must reach of those -- everyone. And we had a plan, $60 billion. We still have it. It's still something we want to negotiate with them.

Sixty billion dollars for what is called Community Development Financial Institutions. And those are those, like even credit unions, community banks, this or that, that know the neighborhood, know the businesses, know the people, know the culture, and can make these loans -- facilitate, expedite these loans going to people, where the local barbershop or some businesses that, again, don't have a banking relationship.

Why would they want to cut that whole layer of people, mostly women, minority-owned businesses, Native American, rural America, veterans, all participating in those initiatives?

And so, we're just saying, this cannot -- we cannot allow the billions, hundreds of billions of dollars being spent to fight the horror of the coronavirus and the impact on our economy to further harden the disparity, the lack of access to credit for so many in the small business community. So, let's have that discussion.

State and local governments are desperate for resources, hospitals desperate for resources. That's what we're saying we need. Small businesses, state and local governments and hospitals, that is what the Senate put on the floor last week. We're very proud of them for doing that, and that is something that needs to be done.

Instead, the Republicans -- we want to see how the money we're spending on state and local hospitals works before we do any more. But they're not putting the PPP to any test of that. And, frankly, we're getting many complaints that people are not getting the response that you get. Let's have that be scientific, let's document that so that it works as

intended. We all want it to work. We all want to facilitate that. But we cannot do it by ossifying (ph) the lack of access to credit for small businesses in our country.

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