Pelosi Tells Colbert Dems Will Take House, Throws Shade at Trump (Newsmax)
By Sandy Fitzgerald | Tuesday, 04 October 2022 07:41 AM EDT
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is predicting that Democrats will hold the House majority after the upcoming midterm elections, telling talk show host Stephen Colbert that her party will win more seats and reminding him, while cracking a joke, that former President Donald Trump is "not on the ballot now."
"I believe that we will win the – hold the House, and we will hold the House – by winning more seats," the California Democrat, appearing on CBS's "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" Monday night, commented. "We won the forty seats, then we lost some when Trump was on the ballot. We lost some of the Trump districts, but we held enough seats to hold the House with him on the ballot."
Then, she said, "He's not on the ballot now. Oh, did I say his name? I didn't mean to."
Colbert told her that "we'll have the videotapes fumigated," and she responded that "perhaps you could bleep that out."
Colbert noted that the "prognosticators" predicted a "crazy red wave," and it still appears that Republicans will take the House, but Pelosi disagreed.
"When we won in 2020, and again, fewer seats, but still holding the House, we started right away to prepare for the next election in terms of organization," Pelosi said. "When you mobilize, you must own the ground to take out the vote. You have to do that with inspiration and how we put together our messaging – and that's the second 'M,' and the third is money. So we're getting ready for the election. That was in December of 2020."
However, then Jan. 6 happened, said Pelosi, resulting in the "greatest influx of candidates" coming forward."
"Young people, people of color, people of different generations, different backgrounds, and the rest – the beautiful diversity of America came forward," said Pelosi. "They didn't pay attention to those pundits who said 'You can't win.' They went in with courage and confidence that they could win."
The Supreme Court's ruling overturning Roe v. Wade also created a "different attitude" about whether the Democrats could win, Pelosi added.
"We always believed that we could win, because we knew we had to because our democracy was on the ballot," she said. "Our planet was on the ballot. A woman's – everything was on the ballot in this election, more than in regular majorities come and go."
She also told Colbert, who told her that the polls aren't reflecting what she was saying, that she doesn't believe in the polls and that the candidates are "doing very well in their districts."
Pelosi compared the election to a horse race, noting that she's originally from Maryland, a "horse racing state."
"In Maryland, when you're in the lead – which we believe we are, we're in the lead. You're in the stretch, we made the turn," she said. "Five weeks from tomorrow is the election and voting starts even sooner than that. When you're in the lead, and you're in the stretch, you whip the lead. And that's what we are doing: we're whipping the lead to ensure a Democratic victory."