Ex-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has suggested that 30% of GOP voters will never back a Democratic candidate because they are sexist, racist or homophobic.
The California Dem’s eyebrow-raising remark immediately drew comparisons to Hillary Clinton’s infamous “basket of deplorables” comment targeting Donald Trump supporters and Texas GOP Sen. Mitt Romney’s “47%” comment about Barack Obama supporters “who pay no income tax.”
“There are people who will never be, shall we say, inclined to support Democrats because of — they just have a different orientation toward women, people of color, LGBTQ, you know, they just are not ever going to be there,” Pelosi said during a Texas Tribune Festival interview Saturday, while reflecting on why the 2024 presidential election is so tight.
“So, say that’s about like 30% or something like that… of the Republicans,” she said.
The Golden State Democrat also posited that the wealthy are backing Republicans in order to keep their taxes low and their businesses free of additional costly environmental regulation.
“Then you have very, very rich people who do not really want to pay taxes or have any regulation of clean air, clean water, any of that. So you have to deal with that. Now, it’s not as many very, very rich people, but it’s a lot of money that goes into a campaign,” she said.
In actuality, Vice President Kamala Harris, 59, has dramatically outpaced Trump, 78, on the fundraising circuit as the pair vie for the White House, with her hauling in some $361 million during the month of August, trouncing her rival’s $130 million.
Pelosi herself had seen her personal fortune grow by tens of millions of dollars during her time at the helm of the House Democratic Conference.
Still, despite her diss of Republican voters, Pelosi urged Democrats to be “understanding” of their political foes.
“We have to be as respectful and understanding as possible,” Pelosi said. “There are people who are concerned. They have fear of globalization. They saw the factory down the road move overseas. They’re fearful of innovation.”
She also ripped into Trump as an adept “snake-oil salesman.”
In the 2016 election cycle, Clinton caused a stir by trashing the GOP bloc of voters.
“You can put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call a basket of deplorables,” she said at the time. “They’re racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, you name it. And unfortunately, there are people like that, and he has lifted them up.”
Romney had stoked similar backlash in 2012 during a fundraiser in May of that year, which was secretly recorded and leaked out closer to the election.
“There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president [Obama] no matter what … who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims,” Romney said at the fundraiser.
“These are people who pay no income tax. … and so my job is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”
While acknowledging the close nature of the 2024 contest, Pelosi was bullish that the “twice impeached” Trump will soon be “twice defeated.” Trump was elected president in 2016, beaten by President Biden in 2020 and has now launched his comback bid against Harris,
Since July, Pelosi has been subject to rampant speculation about her role in Biden’s exit from the race that paved the way for a Harris run. The former speaker acknowledged Monday during an interview on ABC’s “The View” that she hasn’t spoken to the president in the time since.
“My point was we need a better campaign. As I said, a decision to win. I didn’t see us on a path to victory. So it wasn’t about him not running. It’s just if this was the case, we have to run in a different way,” she said.
Pelosi hailed Biden as “patriotic,” “selfless” and the “most consequential president of modern times,” while underscoring that the push to get Vice President Harris across the finish line on Nov. 5 doubles as a bid to “preserve his legacy.”
