Last Friday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) sat on a 2022 Munich Security Conference (MSC) panel titled “Stemming the Illiberal Tide: The Global Challenge of Eroding Democracy” and used the opportunity to bash Republicans, invoke January 6, and claim that rioters that day and other protesters were simply acting out against the Democratic party because she and her colleagues want to end dark money and corruption in politics. She also appeared to reference GOP Voter ID laws around the country and Democratic federal voting legislation as reasons why “democracy is on the ballot” in the 2022 midterm elections. A review of Pelosi’s remarks reveal her comments were filled with distortions of American politics.
Her comments came in response to Ivan Krastev, a political scientist hosting the panel, who asked Pelosi for her thoughts on how to protect American democracy from within its own borders.
Krastev asked:
The question I always wanted to ask you because you experience this on a everyday basis, if you read the opinion polls everybody in the United States is ready to defend democracy. The only problem is that many people believe that the biggest threat of democracy is the other party winning elections. So how is political polarization changing our understanding of democracy and what is your response to a situation in which basically attack on democracy is not coming from forces which declare themselves being anti-democratic, but [the] attack on democracy is [from] people who basically say that what they’re doing is simply defending democracy?
After making some opening remarks, Pelosi answered: “In terms of elections and what supports a democracy, I don’t think any of us — over time — who ran for congress ever came with the idea that we were running for congress and we needed to win because it would save democracy.”
Pelosi also added that she ran for politics, because “You gotta take a punch for the children, throw a punch for the children,” while respecting other people’s views, but that this year something more is at stake – democracy itself, which Pelosi claimed was different from previous elections.
“That was how we think about democracy and as far as the Republicans are concerned, I tell the Republicans I know — and I do know some — take back your party, this isn’t who you are because, Ivan, the fact is in this election democracy is on the ballot,” the senior Democrat opined regarding the 2022 midterm election.
“I would never have said that before, but after January 6, and the events and legislation that have passed around the country to suppress the vote, to nullify elections, well that is democracy,” she continued. “When you just decide to nullify an election, then you are undermining the basic principle the sanctity of the vote — that is democracy.”
Despite her claims that she has never said that before, Pelosi has in fact said “Democracy is on the ballot” on at least one occasion in a plea to voters. In 2012 at the Democratic National Convention, Pelosi gave a speech claiming “our democracy is on the ballot” while encouraging voters to remember to “vote for democracy” at the polls by voting for President Barack Obama and down-ballot Democrats.
Pelosi then moved toward discussing January 6, claiming protesters as well as elected officials were motivated to overturn the election because of the Democrats stance against dark money in politics.
“What you saw on January 6 was an assault on the capital, the temple of democracy,” Pelosi added. “In our view — terrible, but worse an attack on the Congress, worse an attack on the constitution of the United States. A day — that Wednesday was the day designated by the constitution to implement the peaceful transfer of power from one administration to the next.”
“But instead of that, I mean the point is is that we’re there to make sure that democracy has more transparency that people have trust, that one of the reasons they were going after us is because we wanted to end big dark special interest money in politics,” Pelosi said at one point. “We wanted to stop the suppression of the vote, and the nullification of elections, and that’s part of the assault they had on but transparency accountability we’ve heard those words before in this conference very important to democracy.”
As The Daily Wire reported last February, despite Pelosi’s lip service, her party actually raised and used more dark money than Republicans in the 2020 election cycle. The Daily Wire noted that in that cycle, “pro-Biden groups received $145 million from dark money donors, while groups aligned with former President Donald Trump received just $28.4 million.”
Though she did not reference it by name, her talking points were nearly identical to recent statements Pelosi has made while pushing for Democratic voting legislation in the name of democracy, claiming that GOP officials around the country were working to nullify elections and undermine democracy with voting laws similar to the voting reform bill recently passed in the state of Georgia.
“The need to protect our democracy could not be more urgent, as America faces the most dangerous assault on the vote since Jim Crow,” Pelosi said in a statement this January.
“Last year alone, Republican lawmakers introduced over 440 draconian voter suppression bills across 49 states, with at least 19 states enacting 34 measures into law. Meanwhile, Republican-appointed judges have erased hard-won voter protections, including on the Supreme Court,” she claimed. She also claimed that members of the GOP in Congress have “voted to aid and abet this anti-democratic campaign.” thereby “diminishing our democracy here at home, but tarnishing our example of freedom around the world.”
Yet, as The Daily Wire has reported extensively, Democrats have misinformed about nearly every aspect of the voting law. Democrats have claimed voters can’t have access to water or food while in the voting line — which is not true, the bill only placed limits on who could pass out food and water to voters in line. The Left has also claimed that voter IDs harm black Americans and that the majority of Americans oppose photo requirements. Data and polls show both of those claims are false. Lastly, the comparison to Jim Crow is not appropriate as voting ID laws do not in anyway segregate society or purposefully discriminate against minorities or anybody else for that matter.
Pelosi’s MSC remarks can be seen here:
The Daily Wire’s first original film, Shut In, has made its cinematic debut, being met with rave reviews. The Daily Wire is building an alternative to the leftist entertainment industry, one gripping movie at a time. Join us in this mission and stream Shut In today by becoming a Daily Wire member.