CNN "The Lead with Jake Tapper" - Transcript Interview with Nancy Pelosi

Interview

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Speaker Pelosi, thanks for joining us.

So, sources tell CNN that eight Republican members of Congress were briefed today on this intelligence by the White House, and that Chief of Staff Meadows has offered to brief a group of Democrats tomorrow.

Have you spoken with anybody at the White House about being briefed on this shocking intelligence?

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): Well, the shocking intelligence, it is.

And it would be my hope that it isn't true. But it seems clear that the intelligence is real. The question is whether the president was briefed. If he was not briefed, why would he not be briefed? Were they afraid to approach him on the subject of Russia?

And were they concerned that, if they did tell him, that he would tell Putin? So, there's a lot that remains out there.

In terms of briefing Congress, I wrote to the DNI, the director of national intelligence, and the head of the Central Intelligence Agency, to the two of them, asking for a full briefing to all the members of the House of Representatives. That is what members need and deserve.

The fact that they might invite some folks over is fine. I always encourage people to accept an invitation for briefing from the White House. But it is no substitute for what they owe the Congress of the United States.

As an intelligence person myself for a generation in the Congress, I know that force protection is the first responsibility of intelligence, to make sure that, when hostilities are initiated, we have the best possible protection for our troops...

TAPPER: Mm-hmm.

PELOSI: ... and, when they are engaged in a military action, that they are protected.

So, for the intelligence community to say that the Russians may have initiated a bounty on our troops, I just hope it isn't true. But whatever -- the question remains, was the president briefed? And, if he were briefed, then who briefed him? We'd like to see those notes as well.

TAPPER: So, the White House says that the president was not briefed.

The White House also said, Kayleigh McEnany, the press secretary, she seemed to suggest that the reason he was not briefed is because this was not a consensus view of the U.S. intelligence community, that there were dissenting opinions.

Sources tell CNN that U.S. intelligence leaders briefed top intelligence officials from the United Kingdom about this intelligence last week.

It sounds like you're not sure whether or not President Trump was actually briefed, and you think that it's possible that he's lying about that.

PELOSI: Well, I don't know.

I mean, the point is, is that, if they had this intelligence -- and, by the way, the high confidence, forget that. I mean, in other words, if you have something of that threat to our troops, you pursue it. You pursue it.

And, as an intelligence person, again, the Intelligence Committee is frequently briefed on matters that are in the works, shall we say, that we will learn more about as the -- as more intelligence is available.

So, if they had this -- if they had this intelligence, they should have briefed the president. Why didn't they? Because they know it makes him very unhappy. And all roads, for him, as you know, lead to Putin. And would he tell Putin what they knew?

And now it's in the public domain, and so Putin knows anyway.

But for them to have -- for the -- our allies who are with us together in Afghanistan to be briefed on this, and not the Congress of the United States, or, as he says, the president of the United States, it's a -- it's highly questionable.

[16:40:06]

My first reaction when I heard it is, my goodness, I hope this isn't true that our troops are in further danger because of Putin. It's dangerous enough in Afghanistan, I can tell you that, without Putin injecting his bounty into it.

But, if he did, the American people should know about it. And if he did, and the intelligence community had an -- intelligence about it, they should have been informed the president in a way that he would understand and that he would keep highly confidential.

Maybe they feared he would not. But that's why we have to see, if he were briefed, what the notes are of the briefer to the president, so they can't say, well, he told me this, and they didn't tell me that part of it.

This is as serious as it gets. Our men and women in uniform, what -- they are willing to do so much for our country. But we cannot put them at a disadvantage, and when we know what that disadvantage may be, for three months, do nothing about it.

TAPPER: Yes.

PELOSI: And did they consider sanctions? Did they consider a diplomatic response to Putin? That's part of this conversation as well.

Let's just find out the facts. Let's find out the truth. And let's have our suspicions, because, as I have said over and over, when it comes to President Trump, all roads lead to his friend Vladimir Putin.

TAPPER: Right.

So, I want to ask you. Also, the Trump administration is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn completely Obamacare, or the Affordable Care Act.

PELOSI: Yes. Uh-huh.

TAPPER: If the Supreme Court does that, what will Democrats do? What will you do?

PELOSI: Well, the -- my understanding on the timing of it is -- first of all, we're in the middle of a pandemic.

You would think that, in the middle of the pandemic, the president of United States would uphold the law, instead going to court to overturn the law which provides affordable care to so many millions of people in our country, and, at the same time, misrepresent -- as is their wont, misrepresent what they know.

They're saying that they -- oh, yes, they support the benefit of a preexisting condition being not an obstacle to coverage, but, in fact, they are going to court to overturn that condition and every other condition -- advantage in the -- benefit in the bill for America's working families.

It is unfathomably cruel, as I have said, what they're doing on this score.

The timing, though, that I understand is, they did their briefs end of last week. We will counter with our briefs shortly. But, probably, the court will not take up the oral arguments until the fall. So, by then, 100 and, what, 27, 26 days from now, we will have a Democratic Congress.

But I would hope that the court would uphold stare decisis, as it did this morning in the Louisiana case, that they would uphold the Affordable Care Act, the Patient Protection Affordable Care Act.

And, as a matter of fact, as we speak here, on the floor of the House today, we took up the Patient Protection Affordable Care Enhancement Act, which will again lower the cost of prescription drugs, as we promised in the campaign. We passed it, HR-3, last year. It's now part of the legislation today.

TAPPER: OK.

PELOSI: So, as we are enhancing the Affordable Care Act, the president is overturning it, at a time when we have over 125,000 Americans who have died from the pandemic.

TAPPER: Yes. Yes.

PELOSI: And the president is overturning one of their lifelines.

TAPPER: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, thank you so much for your time today. We appreciate it.

PELOSI: My pleasure. Thank you.

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