If Democrats retake the U.S. House of Representatives this fall then U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Memphis, said he’ll support Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House yet again.
Cohen made his remarks on MSNBC this past weekend.
While there, he also called Republican President Donald Trump “a maniac.”
No one from Cohen’s office returned The Tennessee Star’s request for comment this week.
Cohen said Pelosi is “the strongest, most experienced, and best tactician there is.”
“When you have someone to stand up to the most corrupt president, the most bullying president we have ever had and fight to create health care, fight to create jobs and fight to end the culture of corruption he has created in Washington then you want Nancy Pelosi,” Cohen said.
“She is a proven leader. She is a star. She doesn’t back up to anybody. The people who vote for Democratic candidates will want a check and balance on Donald Trump. You don’t put a rookie in the big game of the World Series or the seventh game of the NBA. You go in with the pro who has been there and delivered.”
Pelosi will never back down to Trump, Cohen went on to say.
“The fact that she’s a woman and she’s effective is why Republicans have made her an issue,” Cohen said.
If Democrats fail to retake either the U.S. House or the U.S. Senate then Cohen said it’s time for elected Democrats in both chambers to step down.
“If we don’t take back the house then the country is gone,” Cohen said.
“We have to have checks and balances against this maniac.”
Cohen, meanwhile, is no stranger to bursts of hyperbole.
Cohen in recent years has stated the following:
- Trump’s budget for fiscal year 2018 “will thrust America into social and cultural deterioration, a new Dark Ages.”
- Tea partyers are no different than arsonists.
- Republicans are hostage takers because of the 2013 government shutdown. He then compared conservatives to the 1963 Birmingham church bombers.
- The U.S. Senate can’t pass more gun-control legislation because too many Republicans value guns as much as they do Bibles.
- Republicans are akin to Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels for opposing Obamacare.
- The Ebola virus would mutate into a Biblical-style plague that would devastate Tennessee— unless state Republicans in the Tennessee General Assembly complied fully with Obamacare and expanded Medicaid.
Cohen also seemingly lost his temper at a news conference in Memphis when Tennessee Watchdog asked former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius what she would say to people whose health insurance costs doubled or tripled due to Obamacare. He said Tennessee Republican U.S. Senate candidate Marsha Blackburn should commit suicide. Cohen also told disgraced FBI agent Peter Strzok that he deserves a Purple Heart.
– – –
Chris Butler is an investigative journalist at The Tennessee Star. Follow Chris on Facebook. Email tips to [email protected].
