U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) joined Democratic Congressman Jamaal Bowman (NY-16), for a Community Town Hall in the Riverdale section of The Bronx on Monday, March 14, on the first anniversary of the American Rescue Plan. During the event, which was held at the College of Mount Saint Vincent Athletic Center, located at 6301 Riverdale Avenue, the two discussed U.S. support for Ukraine amid the ongoing war with Russia, as well as other key, domestic, legislative priorities, in the form of a Q&A session.

 

In introducing Pelosi, whose visit coincided with Women’s History Month, Bowman highlighted that she was the first female speaker of the House of Representatives in U.S. history. “And she was so good the first time around, she became speaker again,” he said, amid warm applause from the audience which comprised a strong female contingent that included, among others, Bronx Borough President Vanessa Gibson, Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark, and State Sen. Alessandra Biaggi (S.D. 34).

 

“She has always created the space and the platform for me to be myself and allowed me with so many other freshmen and other members of Congress to be who they are,” Bowman said of the speaker, adding that he felt incredibly honored and humbled to be in Congress during what he said was one of the most challenging times in U.S. history. “I continue to feel secure and stable and empowered under the leadership of our speaker, Nancy Pelosi,” he said, later joking that she has never called him “into the principal’s office to say, ‘Don’t do this or that’.”

 

Bowman went on to say that Pelosi often referred to the Democratic Party as a big tent. “It captures the diversity of our country, and it represents the true diversity of our country, not just in terms of class or race or religion, but in terms of ideas,” he said. “The diverse ideas of our nation are what make our nation the great country that it is, and that it can be, and Speaker Pelosi’s leadership guides us on that path, each and every day in Congress. She often says, ‘Our diversity is our strength and our unity is our power’.”

 

Bowman added that, indeed, despite the rhetoric and the framing of the Democratic Party as one at odds with itself, this was not true. “It’s a space with a diversity of people, where ideas are welcome, so there’s going to be some disagreement; that’s how a democracy works,” he said. “There’s going to be some conflict; that’s how a democracy works,” he added.

 

For her part, Pelosi, who mentioned during the event that her college roommate had been from Riverdale, praised Bowman’s experience and what she described as his powerful voice in Congress as an educator when it came to discussing educational and other policy issues. “Congressman Bowman has been so effective from the start as he brought so much experience on the governance of education as well as job creation,” she said, later adding that funding in education from childhood to college should not be considered a cost, but an investment.

 

“There is no greater investment in the United States than investing in education,” she said. “This is an investment in the future. When I’m asked in Congress what are the three most important things we should focus on, I always say the same thing – our children, our children, our children.” She later added, “Our founders spoke as much about education as they did about democracy, because it is central to a democracy that people will have an opportunity to flourish and be an informed member of democracy, because you have to know what you’re fighting for.”

 

The speaker went on to say that children are the harvest of their parents but that parents are also the harvest of their children because we can all learn from children. “The children own the future; it’s theirs,” she said. “So, as we invest in them, and give them every opportunity, we have to understand that they’re going to be shaping that future and shaping how we move, going forward.”

 

Staying on the topic of education, Pelosi said she recommended to all elected officials to know why they are in Congress. She said for her, the reason was because one in five children in America go to sleep hungry every night in what she said was “this, the greatest country that ever existed in this world.” She added, “We have a big responsibility…. How are they going to learn if they’re not eating?” Quoting the late Rep. Elijah Cummings from Maryland’s 7th congressional district who served from 1996 until his death in 2019, she highlighted again the importance of investing in children, saying, “Our children are our messengers from a future we will never see.”

 

On Ukraine, Pelosi highlighted the U.S. government’s support of the besieged nation from a humanitarian and military funding perspective, explaining that with over 2 million refugees entering Poland and more in other countries, the U.S. had a responsibility to provide assistance to help support the effort and take in refugees also.

 

She said legislation approving over $13.6 billion for humanitarian assistance, border assistance and economic assistance for Ukraine had received strong bipartisan support. “They really have to get that, right away,” she said. “Sen. Chuck Schumer and I invited our members to a joint session, this morning, to hear from the President of Ukraine, President Zelensky. I spoke to him and he asked for this joint session so that he could really make a personal appeal,” she said.

 

“We need to hear his report in his own words as to the needs of what his priorities are,” she said, before adding that there were some things Congress could do regarding the war, and others it could not, referencing Zelensky’s ongoing pleas to “close the skies” over Ukraine to prevent further air strikes by Russia, especially on civilian targets like maternity hospitals and homes. “Open skies means we don’t shoot down any Russian planes over there,” she said. “If we were to shoot down a Russian plane, it would be the beginning of World War III.”

 

Pelosi characterized the Russian invasion as being “outside the circle of civilized human behavior.” She added, “Here we are at a time when one country has invaded another country, an attack against democracy, undermining its sovereignty and its borders, the bombing of a maternity hospital and the people of Ukraine have been so brave, so brave,” she said amid extended applause. “They are not only defending their own democracy, they’re defending the democracy of the whole world as Putin is inching closer.”

 

“So here we are, it’s an interesting time and makes me think of what our founders said,” she continued. “Congressman Payne said, ‘The times, they have found us,’ and we’ve found them too.”

 

Russian President Vladimir Putin has attempted to justify the invasion of Ukraine, saying Russia’s actions are to protect the Russian-speaking residents in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of the country from alleged “nazification.” David Roger Marples, distinguished university professor of Russian and East European history at the University of Alberta, disputes this claim, as have a number of human rights organizations.

 

Marples wrote in early March 2022 in The Conversation, “Ukraine is more democratic than Russia. It holds regular elections, and there is relative freedom of speech and assembly. This supposed “neo-Nazi” regime is led by a Russophone Jew from eastern Ukraine [President Vladimir Zelensky].”

 

Hundreds of international historians and academics also signed an open letter at the end of February 2022 in which they acknowledge that while Ukraine does have a minority of right-wing extremists, this minority does not justify Russia’s aggression nor Putin’s allegations of genocide.

 

Pelosi went on to say that the base of any democracy is a strong middle class, and said again that Bowman had been a champion on policy affecting the most vulnerable in the country. She said she believed Congress was close to reaching bipartisan agreement on curbing gun violence, saying 80 percent of the country supported background checks, for example. She also addressed the plague of maternal mortality, especially among Black women, and committed to doing all she could to address it as part of overall health policy.

 

Asked about her leadership style, the speaker said, addressing the women in particular, that politics was not for the faint of heart.” When you get into that arena, you have to be able to take a punch, right? But you have to be able to give a punch too,” she said, gesturing with her fist, before adding, with a smile and her now famous, raised, index finger, “for the children.”