Pelosi Claims National Guard Is There to Protect Capitol So Americans Can Visit Safely?

EPORTER: “With respect to the Honoré review, some details have leaked down, in part, adding more than 1,000 Capitol Police officers and having retractable fencing and also having a quick reaction forth. Do you support those findings?”

PELOSI: “The fact that there are some — it’s a draft. It’s a draft and so we’re seeing the draft. And we’ll review the draft and then hear what the — our security folks have to say, about the draft as well. I am not here to talk about any particulars of it but I have enormous respect for General Honoré. I think it is a blessing to us that he was willing to take the responsibility to engage so many others who are with law enforcement and national security expertise to look at the situation here about how this – what happened from a security standpoint, and how we could have prevented it, and how we prevented it in the future. Perhaps next week, we will be presenting to the fuller body. And at some point, have a decisions made about what is feasable. And I would have to have a supplemental. It’s going to take more money to protect the Capitol in a way that enables people to come here, children to come to see our democracy in action, all of you to cover what happens here safely. Members to be comfortable that they are safe when here and not be concerned about what happened last time. That just doesn’t have a place in a democracy. And that’s why today — again, it has not impeded us because we only had a small agenda for this morning, big in terms of George Floyd bill, but the rule had been passed earlier in the week. So it was just the hour of debate and then the vote on the bill, which we could easily accommodate last night. But, between Covid, where we need to have vaccinations more broadly in the Capitol so many more people can come here and do their jobs and the threat of — of all the president’s men out there of — we have to — we have to ensure with our security that we are safe enough to do our job but not impeding. And I live in San Francisco, so people say well, if you want to be protected by from earthquakes, you just live in like an iron igloo and then you’re completely safe. Well, who wants to do that? So how do we make the judgments of what is needed to protect ourselves from the — what has be described by the director of the FBI as domestic terrorist and how we protect ourselves against that. It makes Covid look almost doable because it is just a matter of — of money and vaccine, et cetera. So in any event, we’re ready for the task. We have expert guidance and intellectual resources available to us, and we will make decisions and prioritize — about prioritizing how we go forward. But it is — it’s going to be a great day as the Senate proceeds with the legislation. We’re thrilled with what we were able to accomplish last night. And it will be a cause for celebration when we pass the rescue package and at the same time, we are already moving forward with the recovery — with the recovery package. So it’s an exciting time. I — I hope you felt safe coming in today. We’re way ahead of where we were last time because we have fences and we have National Guard and the rest. But nonetheless, we don’t want to have all of that. We want to have our Capitol be respected by everyone in our country, so that — as Lincoln did during the Civil War, he — he said, ‘We’re going to build the dome so that people know we’re proceeding.’ And that’s really what our spirit is. Thank you all very much.”