President Donald Trump said Thursday that leading Democratic Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi’s claim that tax-cut driven bonuses are ‘crumbs’ is about as damaging as Hillary Clinton’s 2016 ‘deplorables’ gaffe.
‘That was a bad — that could be like “deplorable.” Does that make sense? “Deplorable” and “crumbs” — those two words, they seem to have a resemblance,’ Trump told Republican lawmakers on Thursday.
The $1,000, $2,000 and $3,000 bonuses that companies are giving out in response to the GOP’s tax slash for businesses are ‘not crumbs,’ he posited. ‘That’s a lot of money.’
President Donald Trump said Thursday that leading Democratic Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi’s claim that tax-cut driven bonuses are ‘crumbs’ is about as damaging as Hillary Clinton’s 2016 ‘deplorables’ gaffe
Clinton (right) ran into trouble in 2016 when she said half of Trump’s supporters could be considered a ‘basket of deplorables’ while she was at a fundraiser. In describing the GOP tax cuts, Pelosi, the top Democrat in the House, said American workers were getting the ‘crumbs’ of the legislation that passed
Clinton ran into trouble in 2016 when she said half of Trump’s supporters could be considered a ‘basket of deplorables’ while she was at a fundraiser.
The Democratic presidential candidate described her opponents backers as ‘racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic – you name it.’
In describing the GOP tax cuts last Thursday, Pelosi, the top Democrat in the House, said American workers were getting the ‘crumb’ of the legislation that passed.
‘Get this little thing and we get this big bonanza. You get the crumb, we get the banquet,’ she said.
On Thursday, she made the comparison again, ginning up Republicans.
‘There’s a tax advantage in the beginning for families and that’s their enticement while they give banquets to the rest of the, to the high end, to the top, the 1 percent, corporate America,’ she told attendees of a Massachusetts town hall. ‘They’re giving, I say “crumbs,” they mock me in ads, for saying, for comparing the banquet they give to the high end.’
Trump invoked Pelosi’s remarks on Thursday at a GOP retreat in West Virginia as he took a post-State of the Union victory lap.
‘We were waiting for February, and then we got hit with these corporations giving tremendous bonuses to everybody that Nancy Pelosi called “crumbs,” ‘he said.
Congressman Steve Stivers, chairman of the House Republicans’ campaign arm, said afterward at a news conference that Pelosi’s “crumbs” comment ‘is something that I think we can use pretty effectively’ in this fall’s elections.
‘Most workers that have now seen $50 to $100 extra in their paycheck don’t think that’s crumbs. Fifty percent of the American voters are living within $400 of what they think is a financial crisis, so cost of living is important and if you get $50 or $100 in your paycheck that’s a giant deal to you,’ Stivers said.
‘And I think, you know, she’s continuing to say outrageous things. People still remember her, she has almost universal name identification,’ he said of the GOP’s plans to make her face of the opposition.
In the lead-up to the vote on the tax bill that eked through Congress on party-line approval, Pelosi made a slew of derogatory claims about the legislation.
‘Probably one of the worst bills in the history of the United States of America,’ she said in a hotly-contested claim in December. ‘This is Armageddon.’
On the contrary, Trump said Thursday that Americans will start feeling the direct effects of the tax reform legislation this month, and the average West Virginia family, for instance, will see annual savings of $2,000.
‘And when I came into this beautiful building just a little while ago, one of the people said, “You know, I just got a check, and I have $221 more than I had last year at this time in my envelope,” ‘ the president stated.
Trump jested that he might try for deeper cuts. ‘Maybe we’ll do a phase two, I don’t know. We’ll do a phase two. Are you ready for that,’ he said to Rep. Kevin Brady, the House Ways and Means chairman. ‘I think you’re ready. We’ll get them even lower.’