Jonathan Martin and Alex Burns, both of The New York Times, have their book, "This Will Not Pass" coming out May 3 and, if it's anything like what Punchbowl's Friday newsletter teased, we can look forward to some pretty keen insight on Democrats in disarray. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) herself, as the newsletter's sneak peak revealed, sat down with Martin and Burns, twice.
For instance, there's the vote to elect Pelosi as speaker, and it comes off as suggesting we may even want to feel sorry for her:
Pelosi resented that she had to “beg” her Democratic colleagues to give her the job as speaker again. “The experience of begging for support was wearing on her. .. Pelosi was the only Democrat in the chamber — the only Democrat alive — who had already served as Speaker, who had shown she could do the legislative arithmetic and twist the necessary arms to get things done. And yet [her fellow Democrats] were making her grovel. ‘At this point in my life, I don’t need this,’ she vented.
“Her victory in holding onto the speakership, ‘seemed like a joyless one.’ Pelosi expressed “her frustration with unusual vehemence that day, discussing her political future in a way she rarely did around colleagues. ‘You couldn’t pay me a billion dollars to run for Speaker again,’ Pelosi said.”
As dramatic as this nugget from the newsletter may sound, it indeed had been a close vote to re-elect Pelosi as speaker. In January of last year, she was re-elected speaker by a vote of 216-208, though it took her more than one round to emerge victorious. The vote was so close that members who were known to be COVID positive were allowed to break quarantine to cast their votes for Pelosi.
Such a reveal about Pelosi's intention to run for speaker, and it looks like it's a definite no, tells a different story than the response she gave to George Stephanopoulos during her February 13 appearance on ABC's "This Week."
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"That's not a question. My purpose right now is just to win that election. It's to win that election. Nothing less is at stake than the -- our democracy," Pelosi offered as her sort of non-response when asked by Stephanopoulos if she would run for speaker again, should Democrats retain control of the House, which is increasingly looking unlikely.
Pelosi also names some names when it comes to her placing blame, as the sneak peek also reveals:
Pelosi privately blames progressives for nearly costing Democrats the House and said AOC and Jayapal were fighting to be “queen bee” of the left. “In a few strictly confidential conversations she pointed a finger leftward. Pelosi told one senior lawmaker that Democrats had alienated Asian and Hispanic immigrants with loose talk of socialism. In some of the same communities, the Italian Catholic speaker said, Democrats had not been careful enough about the way they spoke about abortion among new Americans who were devout people of faith.”
“During the infrastructure vote, Pelosi was angry “and in private she vented about the progressive blockade that had forced her to cancel the infrastructure vote. … She told another House Democrat that Pramila Jayapal and Ocasio-Cortez were vying to be the ‘queen bee’ of the left, but that their reward might be serving in the House minority after the next election.”
Regardless as to if Pelosi does so "privately," and in the context of "strictly confidential conversations," this is hardly shocking. In that same appearance on "This Week," for instance, Pelosi voiced opposition to the defund the police movement that is popular among the squad members.
Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA), who faces another tough re-election battle this year, shortly after the 2020 election, yelled during a Democratic caucus call about how attack ads tying her to defund the police almost cost her re-election. "If we run this race again we will get f*cking torn apart again in 2022," she had also said.
Spanberger won her race in 2020 with 50.8 percent of the vote to Del. Nick Freitas' 49.0 percent.
While the sneak peek goes through great lengths to try to portray Pelosi as a devout Catholic herself, the speaker has herself flagrantly touted her faith when doubling down on her own extremist pro-abortion position. This includes last July, when she discussed her Catholic faith and being a mother to five children with a reporter while advocating for getting rid of the Hyde Amendment, which would thus force taxpayers to pay for elective abortions.
As Townhall covered extensively at the time last fall, a particularly memorable display of Democrats in disarray was the various times that the infrastructure vote was canceled and moved. This was in part due to demands from House members such as Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), referenced above, who chairs the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which included tying infrastructure to President Joe Biden's failed Build Back Better Act.
When it comes to progressives though, it appears that they may not actually care about losing, as I highlighted in February, citing Alex Seitz-Wald's Sunday from NBC News detailing how "Democratic retirements imperil majority but make way for the left."
It's not merely the particularly high amount of Democratic retirements, which is over 30, but also Biden's drastically low approval ratings in numerous polls. A CBS News poll released on Sunday, which provides just one of many examples, shows Biden at a 42 percent approval rating among Americans, while 58 percent disapprove. Further, historically speaking, the president's party in power almost always fares poorly in his first midterm election. This upcoming likely loss for Democrats could be one for the ages.
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