WASHINGTON — After holding the House floor for over eight hours, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi dispelled any notion Wednesday night she feels Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer betrayed what she wanted in the budget deal.
The Daily Caller was told by a source Wednesday that Pelosi made it clear to Schumer Tuesday that the budget deal did not include what she wanted. But after holding the House floor for a record period of time and making her case for an immigration bill vote, Pelosi claimed this was not true.
“No. Absolutely not. Leader Schumer has what we would like to have. We were all participants in the negotiations, but I think what turns out to be as good as it can get for us in the minority, minority in a no president kind of appropriations bill at this point,” Pelosi told TheDC in reference to the lifting of the budget caps on domestic spending in the deal.
She added, “I put it on the side because it’s a separate discussion about the disaster assistance, so from that standpoint, obviously, I would have written a different bill, but, not having the majority, majority or the White House, it’s different.”
However, during her marathon speech on the floor, she announced that the deal “does not have my support, nor does it have the support of a large number of members of our caucus.”
Pelosi told reporters there are no plans for her to whip for or against the proposed budget deal.
Sen. Schumer went forward Wednesday to announce that a budget agreement was made with Senate Republicans. Schumer’s spokesman, when e-mailed by TheDC, did not say if Pelosi initially took issue with the Senate Minority Leader about the budget deal that was struck with Senate Republicans.
“The budget deal doesn’t have everything Democrats want, it doesn’t have everything the Republicans want, but it has a great deal of what the American people want,” Schumer said in a statement.
“After months of legislative logjams, this budget deal is a genuine breakthrough. After months of fiscal brinkmanship, this budget deal is the first real sprout of bipartisanship. And it should break the long cycle of spending crises that have snarled this Congress and hampered our middle class,” he added.
When asked how she managed to stay on her feet for over eight hours, Pelosi told reporters she was not planning to stay on the floor that long.
“I didn’t know how long I was there. Then my members kept bringing me testimonies…but I was ready to read from the Bible and maybe say a rosary. I went there to pray, because of the 40 hours, as I mentioned. Forty hours is wrought with meaning,” she said.
JUST IN: From the House Historian’s Office: @NancyPelosi has set the record for the longest-continuous speech in House history: pic.twitter.com/w598TQQJRr
— Ed O’Keefe (@edatpost) February 7, 2018
As House Minority Leader, Pelosi can take as much time on the floor as she wants. She broke the record for the longest continuous speech on the floor of the House. The previous record was held Rep. Champ Clark in 1909 of Missouri, who held the floor for 5 hours and 15 minutes.
“When you’re talking it seems shorter. It’s when you’re listening that it seems longer,” she later said.