If Chris Wallace was trying to prove to Fox News viewers that he could grill Democratic leaders just as hard as President Donald Trump and his biggest sycophants, it may have worked.
Vice President Joe Biden has thus far declined to appear on Fox News Sunday, but this week Wallace sat down with the highest ranking Democrat in the Congress, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Referring to the proposed executive action of the president, Wallace asked, “Won’t millions of Americans now get some extended federal unemployment relief and some protections for evictions—get that now rather than nothing at all?”
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“No,” Pelosi replied, agreeing with Republican Senator Ben Sasse, who called the action “unconstitutional slop.”
After she broke down everything that won’t get addressed by Trump’s executive orders, Wallace came back with, “But, Speaker, I understand the president’s executive action doesn’t do all the things you want. But having no bill at all, not coming to any agreement wasn’t going to provide any of the things that you want either.”
Flattering his guest as a “master negotiator,” the host asked, “Didn’t you mess this one up?” And then, “Should you have cut a deal? And are you ready to go back into talks to try to come up with a fuller package?”
“Clearly, you don’t have an understanding of what is happening here,” Pelosi replied, “both in the weakness of the president’s executive orders, which don’t give the money, enhanced benefits, but puts a complicated formula there which will take a while, if at all, to accomplish, to put money in the pockets of the American people.”
When Wallace tried to jump in with another question, Pelosi told him, “I allowed you to finish, you allow me to finish.” She argued that Democrats were willing to meet Republicans “half way,” but they refused.
As the host continued to press Pelosi, she concluded, “When you look at those executive orders, the kindest thing I can say is he doesn’t know what he’s talking about, or something’s very, very wrong there.” To characterize them as “something that would take the place of an agreement,” she added, “is just not so.”
