Pelosi says she won’t forgive Trump and his ‘lackeys’ and ‘bullies’ for the horror of Jan. 6

During a press conference on Wednesday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she would never forgive former President Donald Trump and “his lackeys and his bullies” for the trauma of Capitol Hill staffers during the Jan. 6 insurrection.

Video Transcript

- And also there is a lot of conversations among members and staff about just the breakdown of comity in Congress and the tensions between the two parties, 400 staff members sent a letter to leadership today saying that they don't feel safe because of Boebert and others. So forward looking, how do you address that and how do you fix it and can it be fixed?

NANCY PELOSI: Well, I'll never forgive. I'll never forgive former president of the United States and his lackeys and his bullies that he sent to the Capitol for the trauma that was exerted on our staff. These are largely younger people who come with idealism to work in the Capitol on either side of the aisle and whatever it is. And for us who sign up for this when we run for office, it's bad enough for our families to see the danger we're in.

But for these young people when I came back to the Capitol to say we're going to open up government in the Capitol that night, we were going to honor our constitutional responsibilities even though they had an assault on that January 6 date fraught with meaning from the Constitution. When I saw what it meant to the staff, the way it traumatized them, it was frightening.

That's something that you cannot just say, well, we'll do legislation to make sure this or that doesn't happen again. You cannot erase that. So I have a lot of communication with staff with Capitol Police and the rest, so I know pretty much what people are thinking, not everything.

And we must always be. It's like an horizon. You're always moving to make it better, to make it better. As far as civility is concerned, it would be a good place to start. If they didn't start threatening the lives of of members of Congress from one of their members to the next and saying nothing about it.

But civility is very important. I just met with the spouses and commended them for the role they play in civility because it really is just as you suggest to really important not only to the well-being in our communication, respect for each other, but also in terms of security.