The virulently anti-Trump TIME stopped by the Democrat Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s office to interview her about her courageous attempts to destroy a sitting president. During her interview, Nancy explained how she staged the furniture for the House Judiciary impeachment hearings and revealed the name of the must-win state Democrats plan to target in 2020.
The interview began by reminding everyday Americans of the opulent working conditions the U.S. taxpayer has afforded elite members of Congress like Democrat Speaker Nancy Pelosi (CA).
In her article, TIME writer, Molly Ball, sets the stage for her coveted interview with the Democrat Speaker of the House, a woman many Americans believe is no longer mentally fit for the job.
We’re sitting in her elegant office in the Capitol, on gold-upholstered armchairs around a low table topped with a vase of hydrangeas. Over her shoulder, the sweeping view of the National Mall is shrouded in wintry clouds. For a long moment, the Speaker goes silent as she seems to compile in her mind the list of accomplishments she’d rather claim as her legacy.
Pelosi brags to TIME about impeaching Trump, suggesting that outside of the failed Obamacare disaster, the unpopular impeachment of President Trump might be considered the pinnacle of her 33-year career in Congress.
“Apart from declaring war, this is the most important thing that the Congress can do,” she finally says. “I’m most proud of the Affordable Care Act. But this is the most serious initiative that I’ve been involved in in my career.”
Speaker Pelosi unashamedly confesses that the Democrat Party has been attempting to destroy President Trump since he took office and that when offered the opportunity by Rep. Adam Schiff’s whistleblower accuse him of another scandal, they took the ball and ran with it, yet again.
The idea of a rush to impeachment exasperates the Speaker, who points out that the White House limited the evidence available with its unprecedented stonewalling. And Pelosi contends that the process is merely an extension of the prior investigations of Trump. “This has been going on for 2½ years since the Justice Department tasked Director Mueller to go into the investigation,” she says. “It’s been going on for a long time. The aha moment was Ukraine. But the pattern of behavior was very self-evident over time.”
Pelosi’s aide admits it was not Nancy’s idea to withhold impeachment articles, but instead, was inspired while watching CNN, to pull a stunt that is turning out to be a disaster for the Democrat leadership.
On Dec. 17, the night before the full House would debate and vote on Trump’s impeachment, Pelosi met behind closed doors with top caucus members on the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee. She hinted, for the first time, that she was contemplating a curveball: declining to immediately transmit the impeachment articles to the Senate after the House passed them. “The rule empowers the Speaker to be able to decide how to send the articles and when to send the articles over to the Senate,” she said, according to an aide who was in the room. “My view is we don’t know enough about what they are going to do. We want to see what [is] their level of fairness and openness and the rest.”
Pelosi, according to an aide, had been mulling the tactic since she heard former Nixon White House counsel John Dean float the idea on CNN on Dec. 5. In the committee meeting, she added that she believed McConnell would be motivated to move. “Somebody said to me today that he may not even take up what we send. [But] then [Trump] will never be vindicated,” she said, according to the aide in the room. “He will be impeached forever. Forever. No matter what the Senate does.”
At the conclusion of their interview, Pelosi admits that Michigan, a formerly blue state won by President Trump in 2016, is the prize in the upcoming 2020 election.
But the Speaker, as usual, has a strategy for how she believes the Democrats should proceed. “The message has to be one that is not menacing,” she says. “What works in Michigan works in San Francisco, about job creation and the rest. But what works in San Francisco may not work in Michigan. Michigan is where we must win, and we must win in the Electoral College. We won the House last year by having mobilization at the grassroots level. We have to do that again.”
Meanwhile, the Michigan Trump Republicans group, who many credit for Trump’s stunning win in the state of Michigan in 2016, are running circles around Democrats in the state of Michigan. Democrats who previously relied on union support to get their candidates elected are falling in lockstep with Trump and his commitment to blue-collar workers in the state.
Michigan Trump Republicans are reporting sold-out, bi-monthly Women for Trump luncheons across the state. Local “Trump Tuesday” pub events that they’re hosting in must-win counties across Michigan are packed with Trump supporters of all ages.
Marian Sheridan of Michigan Trump Republicans claims they’ve been inundated with Trump supporters coming to their office in Walled Lake, MI seeking Trump clothing, bumper stickers, signs, and accessories. She adds, “Many of them have never voted in an election before, and they’re coming to us looking for Trump gear and to get involved in the upcoming election.”
Sheridan claims many of the women attending their luncheons have either never voted before or previously voted for Democrats. Many claim they’re attending the Women For Trump luncheons because they want to ensure Trump wins again in 2020.
Nancy may have her eye on Michigan, but if the women at Michigan Trump Republicans have anything to say about it, this is one battle she is not going to win.