Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D) has denied claims made by comedian Bill Maher in a recently surfaced video that he was “responsible” for security during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
“There's footage now out there of you speaking, and I quote you, saying, 'I take responsibility,'” Maher said during an interview with Pelosi on her show “Real Time with Bill Maher” on Friday.
He questioned what the former speaker meant in the released footage, saying he thought she was talking about “the fact that there should have been more protections there.”
“First of all, who would have thought that the president of the United States would incite an insurrection…” Pelosi said in the video. Mediaite highlightsinterjected Mr. Maher.
“Me,” the host replied. “I've been saying that for years.”
She responded: “I never take responsibility. [former President] Donald Trump.”
Instead, Pelosi vowed in the interview that her “sole responsibility” when it comes to Trump is “to make sure he's not re-elected to the White House.”
The exchange came after video was discovered of Pelosi questioning the arrival of the National Guard at the Capitol, which took hours to respond to the incident.
“How many times have members of Congress asked, 'Are you prepared? Are you ready?' They're not prepared for the worst,” Pelosi said in the video. “Now we're calling in the National Guard? They should have been here from the beginning. I don't understand.”
“Why would we empower people like this with something they're not ready for?” she adds in the video.
She also questioned why the National Guard did not respond sooner to the Jan. 6 attack, saying she felt some “blame” for the lack of preparation.
“I feel responsible,” Pelosi told her chief of staff, Teri McCullough. “Teri, we are responsible. We were not held accountable at all for what was going on there, and we should have been. This is absurd.”
“I take responsibility for not making them more prepared, because that would have been stupid,” she later added.
Maher also the Honorable Chairman asked She spoke about the fear that comes with her job, as well as the riots she wrote about in her recent book, “The Art of Power,” and how she felt after her husband, Paul Pelosi, was attacked in their home.
“Well… let me just say that I signed this. And as for that part, well, I signed it publicly,” she told the host.
Pelosi then quoted former Republican President Teddy Roosevelt, saying, “When you step into the arena, you are no longer a spectator.”
“I tell my colleagues and people who are interested in running that when you step onto the field you have to be prepared to take the punches,” she added. “You have to be prepared to throw the punches.”
The Hill has reached out to the Trump campaign.
