President Trump’s handling of the coronavirus is certainly worth criticism, but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is the wrong person to give it.
“He’s a poor leader,” she told ABC News’s This Week on Sunday. “He’s always trying to avoid responsibility and assign blame.”
What followed this comment was a series of finger-pointing and deflections — made not by the president but by the speaker.
For the past week or so, Pelosi and the other Democratic leaders have refused to approve additional funding for the Paycheck Protection Program, a fund established by Congress earlier this month to help struggling small businesses amid the coronavirus pandemic. That fund has officially run dry, less than two weeks after launching.
Asked why she and her colleagues have rejected the Trump administration’s request for an additional $250 billion in emergency funds to bolster the PPP, Pelosi avoided responsibility and assigned blame.
“Of course, we all support the Paycheck Protection Program,” Pelosi said, adding that Democrats would like to see the program include funding for other sectors, too, before they approve the package in its entirety.
The Democrats are trying to do to the PPP what they did to Congress’s $2 trillion relief package — they’re trying to fill it with additional, unrelated funding that requires comprehensive debate. The small businesses shutting their doors don’t have time for that debate, which is why Senate Republicans have pushed for a stand-alone bill that would immediately address the needs of the PPP, while tabling the Democrats’ additional funding requests for Congress’s next relief package. This seems like a straightforward, fair offer, but the Democrats have continued to stonewall, all while pointing the finger at Republicans.
So, it’s difficult to take Pelosi seriously when she speaks of leadership. She clearly thinks of herself as a good leader, yet she continues to do that which she’s condemned: She refuses to take responsibility for the PPP’s funding shortage and points the finger at the other side of the political aisle instead.
This kind of hypocrisy isn’t just tiresome, it comes at a real cost. Our economy is at a standstill, millions of Americans are losing their jobs every single week, and the PPP funding many businesses need to keep their doors open can no longer be relied upon. This is a serious problem that should never have been a problem in the first place. Congress could have immediately bolstered the PPP’s funding had Pelosi and the other Democratic leaders demonstrated just an ounce of humility.
But here we are.
