Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer have called former President Donald Trump a “kid” in need of “family intervention” in an interview about Chinese food.
In an exclusive conversation 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 crab dumplings, hot and sour soup and Peking duck – the duo compared the former president to a “kid” and said Pelosi can handle Trump because she’s raised five children of her own.
They then commended President Joe Biden for his “outstanding work” in office and hoped he would run for re-election against Trump in 2024.
The candid interview came as Trump was trying to garner support for his presidential bid with $99 NFT trading cards that featured him as various characters.
In an exclusive interview with CNN about Chinese food, Senate Majority Leaders Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi slammed former President Donald Trump while supporting President Joe Biden
The two compared the former president to a “child,” with Pelosi saying he believes he needs “family intervention.”
Pelosi and Schumer spoke with Gangel over lunch at the Hunan Dynasty on Capitol Hill, where the two have enjoyed many meals together over the past several decades.
They spoke of the close friendship they’d formed over the years, and the Speaker of the House even nudged Schumer at one point for still using a clamshell phone.
And they seemed united in their thoughts on the potential 2024 race between Trump and Biden.
Schumer said he didn’t think Trump would be re-elected, telling Gangel, “The American people got smart about him. [It] took a while but they did it.’
Pelosi then added, “I don’t think we should talk about him over dinner.”
Still, they continued to discuss how they dealt with the former president while he was in office, as they shared how they felt on Jan. 6, 2021, as pro-Trump insurgents stormed the Capitol to announce the results of the presidential election to tip in 2020.
The duo shared that they both had different approaches to dealing with the former president, with the Senate Majority Leader saying: “He was a kid, ultimately.
“I tell people, ‘Nancy knew instinctively how to deal with Trump because she raised five kids in the first 35 to 40 years of her life.’
Pelosi later revealed that she believes Trump needs intervention.
“I think his family needs to intervene,” she said frankly. ‘He’s not on the level.’
The two discussed meeting Trump in 2018, where Schumer got the then-president to say on camera that he would shut down the government if lawmakers refused to fund his border wall
The pair also discussed meeting Trump when he was first sworn in, with Pelosi revealing her shock as he began his speech by insisting he had won the popular vote – which he lost.
She said she simply told him “that’s not true”.
And they shared how they met with the then-president in the Oval Office in December 2018, when Trump said on camera he would shut down the government if lawmakers refused to fund his border wall.
“Chuck was masterful,” Pelosi said of the meeting when Schumer led Trump to make the remark.
But Schumer insisted, “She set him up so I could get involved in the killing.”
The two also discussed the anxiety they faced on January 6, 2021 during the Capitol riots. Video released in October showed the Speaker of the House and the Senate Majority Leader frantically calling for help after being escorted to safety.
“The cell phone service didn’t work for a while,” Schumer said in an interview.
Yet they continued to seek help from elected officials like Vice President Mike Pence and even military leaders.
When Gangel asked if they were trying to reach Trump directly, Schumer admitted they were trying, but the acting attorney general wouldn’t hire him.
“It’s really a tragedy they didn’t send the National Guard sooner,” Nancy said.
Their calls came just three days after an Oval Office meeting at 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 eventually told that if he went through with the plan, senior justice officials, including Rosen, would resign.
Video released in October showed the Speaker of the House 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 their place
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is on a phone call with then-Vice President Mike Pence from an undisclosed location as people broke into the US Capitol
Eventually, they escalated to Acting Secretary of Defense Jeff Rosen
However, when asked what they thought of President Joe Biden’s two-year term, leading congressional Democrats had nothing but good things to say about him.
Pelosi said that Biden, who at 80 is already the nation’s oldest president, had “done an excellent job” in the White House.
“I hope he will seek re-election,” she said. “He is a person with a great vision for our country. He has been involved for a long time and is therefore very familiar with the issues and challenges we face.’
She added that she thought Biden was “the most empathetic president.” He connects with people.
“The vision, the knowledge, the strategic thinking is all here,” she said, gesturing to her head. “The empathy is heartfelt and I think he’s a great president.”
Schumer, meanwhile, said he would continue to support Biden if he runs for re-election, saying, “He’s done an excellent, excellent job. And if he walks, I’ll support him all the way.’
But a recent CNN poll found many Americans don’t have a huge 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 Democrat-leaning independents say they want a candidate other than Biden would.
Pelosi and Schumer talked about their decades-long friendship in the interview. The two are pictured here at a press conference in 2018
The interview comes less than three weeks before Pelosi resigns as Speaker of the House.
Over dinner at their favorite Chinese restaurant, Schumer and Pelosi discussed their decades-long friendship and compared themselves to siblings.
Pelosi said the Senate Majority Leader calls her regularly, with Schumer admitting she’s probably the person he speaks to most outside of his family.
“If he had a regular smartphone, we could cut down on the number of calls because I could just text him,” Pelosi said.
But Schumer said he plans to continue calling her in the future.
“I’m definitely going to call and get their advice and get a feel for what’s going on at the house and what we can do,” he said.