Pelosi Shivs Schumer: ‘don't Give Away Anything For Nothing’

SAN FRANCISCO — Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi offered a sharp critique of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on Tuesday, suggesting he had forfeited a crucial bargaining chip by allowing a vote on Republicans’ government funding bill.

“I myself don't give away anything for nothing,” Pelosi told reporters during a news conference at a children’s hospital in San Francisco. “I think that's what happened the other day.”

Pelosi — who spoke during an event to oppose House Republicans’ proposed cuts to Medicaid — said she still supports Schumer, her longtime ally who’s come under fire from within his own party in recent days over his decision to allow the GOP’s bill to avert a government shutdown through last Friday.

But Pelosi suggested that if Schumer hadn’t cleared the way, it would have given Democrats more leverage to fight proposed cuts to Medicaid and other social safety-net programs.

“We could have, in my view, perhaps, gotten them to agree to a third way,” Pelosi said. She said a potential outcome could have been a bipartisan continuing resolution to delay a shutdown for three to four weeks while negotiations continued.

She added, “They may not have agreed to it, but at least the public would have seen they're not agreeing to it — and that then they would have been shutting (the) government down.”