Fox News is making hay with a “confrontation” between House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and a member of the audience over her assertion that a $1,000 bonus paid to employees of some companies was “crumbs” during a CNN Town Hall House.
During the program, Pelosi also said she opposes the idea of allowing armed, trained teachers to carry guns in schools as a first line of defense against school shootings.
Earlier this year, after claiming that benefits from tax-cutting legislation passed by Republicans amounted to “crumbs,” the former House speaker, who hopes to regain that job if Democrats take control of Capitol Hill in this fall’s midterm election, caught flack even from her own party.
Small business owner John Anfinson told Pelosi that when Republicans passed the tax reform package, he not only gave his employees a $1,000 bonus, he also gave them all a five percent pay increase. Combined with reduced withholding taxes under the GOP measure, he said it amounts to a sizeable increase in take home pay.
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“This was certainly not crumbs,” Anfinson stated.
Pelosi contended that only a small percentage of business actually provided bonuses to their employees.
Later in the 48-minute session, Pelosi told Alexis Wilson, a student at Santa Fe High School in Texas, where ten people were fatally shot last week, that she and other Democrats do not support arming teachers. Wilson suggested that armed teachers could provide similar response to armed air marshals on passenger jets.
“Speaking for myself and most of my colleagues on the Democratic side, we do not think that that is the solution,” Pelosi told the high school senior. “I would not be supportive of arming teachers.”
The Washington Post published the results of a survey earlier this year that showed strong opposition to arming teachers. However, some schools have quietly allowed teachers and staff to be armed.
According to CNN, Pelosi told the audience, “But the children should not have to be worried about going to school at a place that violence can occur. That doesn’t mean they shouldn’t take the precautions, whether it’s through infrastructure or whatever else they may decide that they need. But I don’t think you should consider it, in any way, an answer to what we have to do to have responsible background checks.”
Huh?
From arming teachers, Pelosi was able to spin the discussion to conducting background checks. The shooter at Parkland, Florida passed a background check. The shooter in Santa Fe, Texas took guns belonging to his father that were legally purchased, so there was no background check.
