House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said a Hillary Clinton victory should pave the way for her party to take back the majority in Congress.
“Because I think when we have our first woman president of the United States, if that’s how the primary turns out, and I suspect it will, that it’s important for us to have the debate along the way that holds all candidates accountable, Republicans, as well, that when the election is complete, we want our country to go forward in a very positive way into the future,” Pelosi said today on MSNBC.
“We can’t have a president, the first woman president and have a Congress that is about obstruction and subpoenas and the rest of that,” she added. “But that has to happen in the campaign, not after the fact.”
Pelosi was asked about quotes from Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) this week on religious freedom.
“We are at the water’s edge of the argument that mainstream Christian teaching is hate speech, because today, we’ve reached a point in our society where if you — if you do not support same-sex marriage, you are labeled a homophobe and a hater,” Rubio said. “So what’s next step after that, after they’re done going after individuals? The next step is to argue that the teachings of mainstream Christianity, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, is hate speech. And that’s a — that’s a real and present danger.”
Both Rubio and Pelosi are Catholic.
“I thoroughly disagree. Being raised a — in a Catholic family, raising a Catholic family, Main Street — mainstream Catholic,” she said. “I take that the statement by Senator Rubio is most unfortunate. It’s a polarizing statement. The fact is, is that what we were taught was to respect people in our faith and to say that this endangers mainstream Christian thinking is so completely wrong. And again, it’s polarizing. And I would hope that — perhaps he believes what he says and I assume that he does. But I hope that we can persuade him differently, because the country is going in a completely different direction now. And it’s very — it’s very, very exciting.”
“I don’t even think that Pope Francis would subscribe to what Marco Rubio just said,” Pelosi added.
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