ABC "This Week" - Transcript: Interview with Nancy Pelosi

Interview

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REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): This is a momentous day in the history of our country.

REP. LIZ CHENEY (D-WY): It includes provisions that are not targeted, they're not temporary, they're not related to COVID.

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): Hope is on the horizon. Help is on the way.

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY): This is vastly more expensive than should have been improved.

STEPHANOPOULOS: A legislative win, a failure for bipartisanship -- what it means for American families and Biden's agenda going forward.

And:

GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D-NY): I'm not going to resign.

STEPHANOPOULOS: New York Governor Andrew Cuomo defiant, as New York senators join calls for his resignation, amid a mounting impeachment effort.

We cover it all this morning in exclusive interviews with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Republican Senator John Barrasso, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, plus insight and analysis from our powerhouse roundtable.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: From ABC News, it's "This Week."

Here now, chief anchor George Stephanopoulos.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Good morning, and welcome to "This Week," a week that marks a major turning point in the fight against COVID.

One year into the pandemic, President Biden delivered his first address to the nation, signed one of the most sweeping anti-poverty programs since the New Deal. Almost 90 percent of American households are eligible for stimulus checks. The first hit bank accounts this weekend.

More than 93 percent of American children will draw income to their families, likely to lift nearly six million out of poverty.

Overnight, the CDC reported 2.98 eight million vaccines administered in one day, a new record. More than 105 million doses have now been administered, on track to have the overwhelming majority of Americans vaccinated by this summer.

As the president is set hit the road this week to sell his plan, big questions now about what's next for his agenda. That's our focus this morning.

We begin with the speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi.

Madam Speaker, welcome to "This Week."

PELOSI: Good morning. My pleasure to be here.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Let's start with the COVID relief package.

I outlined some of the benefits just now. But there was unanimous opposition on the Republican side. Most said the package was too large, not targeted at COVID relief. And our next guest, Senator John Barrasso, argues that it will overheat the economy and fuel inflation.

What's your response?

PELOSI: I totally disagree.

The fact is that it's strongly bipartisan across the country. It's only in the Congress of the United States where the Republicans have refused to meet the needs of the American people, where they didn't vote -- as I said of them, vote no and take the dough.

You can be sure that all of their states and communities will be benefiting from this, and they won't be complaining about it back home.

But let's just be on the positive side of it. This is pretty exciting. As I said, it's a momentous day. This is transformative. We have -- 50 percent of children in poverty will be taken off of poverty.

And, by the way, this bill is 90-some percent coronavirus-centric. This is similar to the bill that we wrote in May, the HEROES Act, some of which was implemented in December, much of it now, but refreshened by President Biden's proposals.

Then, we didn't have the vaccine. Now we do. So, that makes a tremendous difference in our goal to crush the virus and save the lives and livelihoods of the American people. So, it's a -- it's what we needed to do. And we need to do more, as we go into the next step with our recovery package.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Let's talk -- let's talk about what comes next.

You signaled Friday that major infrastructure legislation is coming next. That's going to require new taxes. Can you keep Democrats united behind a proposal like that and attract any Republican support?

PELOSI: Well, we will see.

I mean, the -- building roads and bridges and water supply systems and the rest has always been bipartisan, always been bipartisan, except when they oppose it with a Democratic president, as they did under President Obama, and we had to shrink the package.

But, nonetheless, hopefully, we will have bipartisanship. So, I put out the -- I called upon my chairs of the committees of jurisdiction to reach out to the Republicans to see what we can do, as we have traditionally done, in a bipartisan way.

This is about broadband. It's about water systems. It's about mass transit, it's about good paying jobs all over the country. It's also about schools and housing and the rest. Good paying jobs across the country. And not only that, once those jobs of building are done, it's about promoting commerce, creating good -- so it's -- the goal is to promote good growth creating good paying jobs as we protect our planet and are fiscally sound.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But it is going to take new taxes, right? You say fiscally sound.

PELOSI: Well, we'll see. There are some fees that spring from certain harbor maintenance tax credits, this that, we'll see. I think that some of it needs to be -- we'll look at everything.

We'll look at the tax code. We'll look at the appropriations process. We'll look at bonding in terms of Build America Bonds enabled us to do so much in our (ph) package under President Obama, and Vice President Biden. We'll take a look at those, but, again, we want to be fiscally sound as we go forward.

And this is job creating which creates revenue that comes back to the Treasury, unlike what the Republicans did with their tax scam in 2017 which gave 83 percent of the benefits to the top 1 percent and debted our children to the tune of nearly $1.9 trillion -- recognize the figure, in debt, added to the national debt. So they should be the last people to be talking about what is too expensive for the American people as we meet their needs.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Let's talk about the situation at the border. We've seen a huge surge in migrants crossing the border since January. The number of children in custody, higher than it was than its 2019 peak during the Trump administration. Your colleague Veronica Escobar of Texas called the conditions there unacceptable. She was there on Friday.

Is she right? What more must be done?

PELOSI: Well, I'm sorry. I didn't hear who you said.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Veronica Escobar.

(CROSSTALK)

PELOSI: Veronica Escobar, our colleague from -- representing El Paso, and yes, it is.

The -- actually, the facts of these, there are more children, about 600, 700 more children, unaccompanied children coming over the border. This is a humanitarian challenge to all of us.

What the administration has inherited is a broken system at the border, and they are working to correct that in the children's interest. I'm so pleased that the president, as a temporary measure, has sent FEMA to the border in order to help facilitate the children going from one -- the 72-hour issue into where they are cared for as they are transferred into family homes or homes that are safe for them to be.

So this, again, is a transition for what was wrong before to what is right. Of course, we have to also look to Central America, Mexico and the rest. The corruption, the violence, all of that's so bad.

My most recent trip to the Northern Triangle, that would be Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, you saw the impact of the climate change, mind you. These people were leaving because of the drought. They couldn't farm and they were seeking other ways to survive.

So there are many reasons that go into this, but the fact is we have to deal with it at the border, and many of the people -- some of the people coming there are seeking asylum. And I always like to quote our friends in the evangelical movement, at one of our rump hearings we had before the majority of the representatives said to us, the United States Refugee Resettlement Program is the crowned jewel of American humanitarianism.

So we have certain responsibilities that we must honor. We have to have a system that accommodates that, and that is what the Biden administration is in the process of doing.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Let's talk about security on Capitol Hill. An increasing number of Democrats and Republicans are saying the National Guard presence has to be reduced, fencing should start to come down. Are you prepared to move in that direction?

PELOSI: Well, I have -- this past week we had the presentation by General Honore and other law enforcement and national security experts as to how to -- as to what we can do to avoid what happened before, but -- as we go forward. And members (ph) springing from that are having their views.

This has to be a professional security decision. I myself have been one to say, let's see what we can do with a minimum of fencing, but again, this is a security decision.

They're cutting in half the number of -- of the National Guard already. They only will be there as planned for the next two months, and subject everything that is there. The architect of the Capitol has certain needs that he must have to harden the entrances and windows to the Capitol. You know, it's a -- and then the Police Board has to be reviewed for how it makes decisions.

There are important decisions to make, and we had three sessions. So that's as many members as possible who wanted to know the facts of it all, and now, this week, hopefully, we'll be able to make some decisions based on that, and then we will have to have a supplemental piece of legislation to pay for the additional changes.

And hopefully, as we make our decisions, those will be our very best investments on how we protect the Capitol, return it as soon as possible to this glorious temple of democracy that it is, so our children can return, our visitors can return, and appreciate the democracy of the United States.

So --

STEPHANOPOULOS: I want to ask --

PELOSI: I think we're all on the same page in terms of wanting to make changes necessary. Unfortunate that it had to happen, but if you have an insurrection incited by the president of the United States, based on misrepresentations, you have to make sure you're safe enough so those who are motivated by those misrepresentations do not think that they have open season at the United States Capitol.

STEPHANOPOULOS: I want to ask you about the controversy around the Iowa's second congressional district. The GOP Congresswoman Marjorie (ph) Miller-Meeks won a razor close election, six votes. The votes were counted, recounted, certified by the state.

But the House Administration Committee began a process this week that could lead to unseating the congresswoman.

PELOSI: (INAUDIBLE)

STEPHANOPOULOS: That has Republicans accusing you of hypocrisy, including Jim Jordan. He put out this tweet: Speaker Pelosi says she's open to unseating Republican Congresswoman Miller-Meeks. Translation, you're only allowed to object to an election if you're a Democrat.

Why investigate an election that was certified by the state?

PELOSI: Well, it was six votes. It was six votes, and our candidate Rita Hart, the Democratic candidate asked for this process to begin.

What the committee did, the House Administration Committee, was very narrow to take the process to the next step and see where it goes from there. An election of six votes out of 400,000 votes cast.

This is not unique. This has happened -- maybe even when you were in the Capitol before when races had been close one side or the others saying, let's -- let's take it to the House. Because even Justice Scalia agreed that the House has the authority to seat members, and therefore we can count the votes. Six votes out of 400,000 cast.

For them to call anybody hypocritical about elections when two-thirds of them in the House voted against accepting the presidency of Joe Biden is -- well, it's just who they are.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Finally, I want to ask you about New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. Majority of New York's congressional delegation, both senators have called on Governor Cuomo to resign.

You've said there should be zero tolerance for sexual harassment.

PELOSI: Right.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Does that mean that Governor Cuomo should resign?

PELOSI: I said there's zero tolerance for sexual harassment, and we have taken measures in the House of Representatives -- very strong measures in the House under the leadership of Congresswoman Jackie Speier of California.

The -- what I said at the time that these revelations came forward, I said what these women have said must be treated with respect. They are credible and serious charges, and then I called for a -- an investigation.

I have confidence in the attorney general of New York. She has called for a -- I think expeditious investigation, and again, with all the respect in the world for what these women have come forth and said.

I terms of -- you're talking about New Yorkers now. In terms of generally speaking, people have to look inside themselves and say -- and Governor Cuomo also, are they -- how effective is their leadership in leading the state under the circumstances that are there?

But I do think that the women deserve to hear the results of these investigations as does the governor.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Can he be an effective leader now?

(CROSSTALK)

PELOSI: But again, no, no tolerance. No tolerance. And this is a subject very near and dear to my heart. This is -- no tolerance for sexual harassment. I'll let the world know that.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But you're not calling on him to resign right now?

PELOSI: I think we should see the results of the -- but he may decide, and that was -- hopefully, this result will be soon, and what I'm saying is the governor should look inside his heart -- he loves New York -- to see if he can govern effectively.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Speaker of the House --

(CROSSTALK)

PELOSI: And that could be one of the considerations that he has.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Thank you very much for your time this morning, Speaker.

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