Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer slammed former President Donald Trump as a “kid” in need of a “family intervention” in an interview about Chinese food.
Speaking exclusively with CNN’s Jamie Gangel, the two faces of the Democratic leadership in Congress opened up about their decades-long friendship and their thoughts on the current and former president in their first interview together.
Over their lunch, which included shrimp dumplings, sweet and sour soup and Peking duck, the duo compared the former president to a “kid,” saying Pelosi was able to handle Trump because she raised five children of her own.
They then praised President Joe Biden for doing an “excellent job” in office and said they hope he will run for re-election against Trump in 2024.
The candid interview came as Trump tries to garner support for his presidential bid with $99 NFT trading cards that feature him as various characters.
In an exclusive interview with CNN about Chinese food, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi criticized former President Donald Trump while endorsing President Joe Biden.
The two compared the former president to a “kid” and Pelosi said she thinks he needs a “family intervention.”
Pelosi and Schumer spoke with Gangel over lunch at the Hunan Dynasty on Capitol Hill, where the couple have enjoyed many meals together over the past decades.
They talked about the close friendship they’ve built over the years, with the House speaker even criticizing Schumer at one point for continuing to use a flip phone.
And they seemed to agree on their thoughts on the possible 2024 race between Trump and Biden.
Schumer said he doesn’t think Trump will be re-elected, telling Gangel: “The American people have grown wise to him.” [It] It took a while, but they did it.
Pelosi then added, “I don’t think we should talk about him while we eat.”
Still, they went on to discuss how they handled the former president when he was in office and shared how they felt on Jan. 6, 2021 when pro-Trump insurgents stormed the Capitol in an effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
The duo shared that they both had different approaches to dealing with the former president, with the Senate Majority Leader saying, “Ultimately, it was a child.”
“I tell people, ‘Nancy instinctively knew how to handle Trump because in the first 35-40 years of her life she raised five children.
Pelosi later revealed that she thinks Trump needs an intervention.
“I think an intervention from his family is necessary,” he said candidly. It is not at the level.
The two talked about a meeting with Trump in 2018 in which Schumer had the then-president say on camera that he would shut down the government if lawmakers refused to fund his border wall.
The two also talked about meeting with Trump when he first took office, and Pelosi revealed her surprise when she began her speech by insisting that she won the popular vote, which she lost.
She said he simply told her ‘that’s not true’.
And they shared how they met with the then-president in December 2018 in the Oval Office, when Trump told the camera that he would shut down the government if lawmakers refused to fund his border wall.
“Chuck was masterful,” Pelosi said of the meeting, when Schumer got Trump to make the comment.
But Schumer insisted: “She set him up so I could go in for the kill.”
The two also discussed the fear they faced on January 6, 2021 during the riots at the Capitol. Video released in October showed the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the Senate Majority Leader frantically calling for help after being escorted to safety.
“For a while, cell phone service was down,” Schumer said in the interview.
Still, they continued to try to call elected officials like Vice President Mike Pence and even military leaders for help.
When Gangel asked if they tried to contact Trump directly, Schumer revealed that they did, but the acting attorney general didn’t put it up.
“It’s really a tragedy that they didn’t send the National Guard sooner,” Nancy said.
Their calls came just three days after an Oval Office meeting in which Trump considered replacing Rosen as acting attorney general with loyalist Jeffrey Clark so he could use his powers to overturn the election. CNN reports.
But Trump was ultimately told that if he went ahead with the plan, top Justice officials, including Rosen, would resign.
Video released in October showed the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the Senate Majority Leader frantically calling for help after being escorted to safety. Schumer said in the interview that acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen would not put the president in for them.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is pictured talking on the phone with then-Vice President Mike Pence from an undisclosed location as people stormed the US Capitol.
At one point they escalated Acting Secretary of Defense Jeff Rosen.
Yet when asked what they thought of President Joe Biden’s two years in office, the top Democrats in Congress had only good things to say about him.
Pelosi said Biden, who at 80 is already the oldest president in the nation, has “done an excellent job” in the White House.
“I hope he seeks re-election,” he said. ‘He is a person with a great vision for our country. He’s been involved for a long time, so he’s very knowledgeable about the issues and challenges we face.’
He added that he thought Biden is “the most empathetic president.” He connects with people.
“The vision, the insight, the strategic thinking is all here,” he said, pointing to his head. “Empathy is from the heart and I think he is a great president.”
Meanwhile, Schumer said he would continue to support Biden if he seeks re-election, saying, “He’s done a terrific, terrific job.” And if he shows up, I’m going to support him until the end.’
but a recent CNN poll found that many Americans don’t have much of an appetite for either candidate.
It found that more than six in 10 Republicans or Republican-leaning independents say they want their party to nominate someone other than Trump, while 59 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents say they would want a candidate who isn’t. be Biden.
Pelosi and Schumer discussed their decades-long friendship in the interview. The two are shown here at a press conference in 2018.
The interview came less than three weeks before Pelosi is set to step down as Speaker of the House.
Over the course of lunch at their favorite local Chinese restaurant, Schumer and Pelosi talked about their decades-long friendship, comparing themselves to siblings.
Pelosi said the Senate Majority Leader calls her regularly, and Schumer admitted that she’s probably the person he talks to the most outside of his family.
“If I had a normal smartphone, we could reduce the number of conversations because I could only send you a text,” Pelosi said.
But Schumer said he plans to keep calling her in the future.
“I will certainly call her and seek her advice and insight into what is going on in the House and what we can do,” he said.