Nancy Pelosi sat down with Stephen Colbert on Tuesday night and wasn't afraid of jinxing the coming midterms. “We will win!” she told the Late Show host. “We will win, we will win!”
“Please don't say that, please don't say that!” Colbert pleaded. “Do you want to say that on Hillary‘s fireworks barge that she cancelled? Please, please, please don't say that.”
Pelosi assured Colbert: “The Democrats will carry the House, if we have a bigger win, the Senate, governorships. It's going to be a great night for America.”
Added Colbert: “I feel like I should sacrifice a goat or something to take the hex off of what you just said.”
Pelosi said she was wearing purple for a reason: “It's about unifying the country. I think it is time to heal.”
She added: “Well, I think when we win, you will see evidence of [the temperature of the country being lowered]. Because when we do win, we will have, as we open the new Congress – we will honor the vows of our founders: ‘E pluribus unum – From many one.' Well you couldn't imagine how many we would be or how different we would be from each other, but they did know that we had to strive for oneness. It's okay to disagree, a marketplace of ideas, that's exciting. But it is also important to find solutions that unify and not divide. And that's what makes a big difference between Democrats and what's in the White House now.”
Colbert then pointed out that she has many critics. “You are aware that with the president's base and with many Republicans, you're a polarizing figure.”
Replied Pelosi: “I've noticed that.”
Said Colbert: “There are 130,000 times negatives ad that included you as a negative figure have been running 130,000 times in this election cycle, more than negative ads about the president. What goes through your head when people use you as a cudgel against a Democrat? They say, ‘We can't let Nancy Pelosi be the next Speaker of the House, again.' What do you say to those people?”
Responded Pelosi: “Well, I don't really have that much to say to them…I think they say that because they don't have anything to offer. What are they going to say? ‘We just passed a tax bill that gives 83% of the benefits to the top 1%. They're trying to do away with your health care, especially if you have a pre-existing medical condition, Medicare, Medicaid, forget about it. Clean air, clean water, we've just degraded all of that.'That's not what they can say, so what can they say.”
