Pelosi Says GOP Senate 'Trying to Get Away with ... The Murder of George Floyd' with Police Reform Bill

During an interview with CBS News Radio, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi trashed the Senate Republicans’ police reform package. In addition, she accused the GOP of “trying to get away with” the “murder of George Floyd.”

Republicans, led by South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, began working on police reform legislation following the death of Floyd in Minneapolis police custody on May 25. In her CBS News Radio interview on Tuesday, as The Daily Caller reported, Pelosi described the finished product as an “unsalvageable piece of legislation.”

For the record, the bill Pelosi dismisses as “unsalvageable” includes in its provision a requirement that law enforcement “create a database of use of force reports” and “create the Breonna Taylor Notification Act, which would track ‘no-knock’ warrants.”

Pelosi admitted that the legislation did “have some suggestions that are worthy of consideration,” presumably referring to the aforementioned provisions. That did not stop her from engaging in character assassination.

The interview is here. Her comment about Republicans “trying to get away with murder” comes about the 2:35 mark.

Rather than make a case for why legislation being crafted in the House is better than what Senate Republicans came up with, Pelosi had to jump into the gutter. The fact that she would stoop this low should not come as a surprise.

It seems like Pelosi has made a calculation that her primary role is to appease the increasingly radical, uniformly anti-Trump Democratic base. Republican Congressman Doug Collins may have had a point when he described Pelosi as a “follower of AOC tweets.”

Back in February, the speaker dramatically ripped up President Trump’s State of the Union speech. In response to her unprecedented action, Pelosi received a standing ovation from her Democratic colleagues.

Pelosi apparently thought that her outlandish claim alleging that Republicans bear responsibility for the death of George Floyd would result in similar applause.

The idea that Republicans had anything to do with the death of George Floyd is absolutely despicable. Maybe she has not been paying attention but no one on either side of the aisle has defended the actions of Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer responsible for Floyd’s untimely death.

Needless to say, Republicans on Capitol Hill quickly reacted to Pelosi’s comments with disgust. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy described “her insinuation” as “beneath the office she holds.”

This is hardly the first time that Pelosi has ascribed the worst possible motives to Republicans when discussing their policy proposals. In an effort to measure just how many illegal aliens live in the country, Trump proposed putting a citizenship question on the 2020 census.

According to Pelosi, a desire to “Make America White Again” served as the motivating factor in the push for a citizenship question. When in doubt, always smear Republicans as racist.

Pelosi and many others on the left could do themselves a huge favor by listening to Chrissie Hynde, the lead singer of the rock group the Pretenders.

As The Washington Times reported in February, Hynde wrote a letter to Trump, informing him that her late father “would have enjoyed” his presidency and appreciated his decision to award Rush Limbaugh the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

In her letter, Hynde explained that she and her father “argued a lot” before asking “isn’t that the American way? The right to disagree without having your head chopped off?”

It should also be the American way to have “the right to disagree” without having to resort to attributing sinister motives to political opponents. In today’s highly polarized political climate, disagreement is inevitable.

Rather than trash her opponents as murderers, Pelosi should work with the GOP to put together a bill to make sure that what happened to George Floyd never happens again. If Pelosi could put partisan games aside for just 20 seconds, maybe Congress would finally see its dismal approval rating start to improve.