Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D) pushed back on a suggestion by comedian Bill Maher that her comments in recently surfaced footage that she took “responsibility” for security during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
“There’s some footage of you that just came out where you’re talking about — you say, I’m quoting you, ‘I take responsibility,’” Maher said Friday on “Real Time with Bill Maher,” while interviewing Pelosi.
He questioned the former Speaker on what she meant in the unveiled footage, saying he believes she’s talking about “the fact that there should’ve been more protection there?”
“First of all, who could’ve ever thought that the president of the United States would incite an insurrection …” Pelosi said, in a clip highlighted by Mediaite, before Maher interjected.
“Me,” the host replied. “I was saying it for years.”
She responded, “I’m not ever taking responsibility for [former President] Donald Trump.”
Instead, Pelosi vowed in the interview, that her “only responsibility” when it comes to Trump is “to make sure he is not reelected” to the White House.
The exchange comes after footage was unearthed where Pelosi was seen asking about the National Guard’s arrival to the Capitol — which took hours to respond to the incident.
“How many times did the members ask, ‘Are we prepared? Are we prepared?’ We’re not prepared for the worst,” Pelosi said in the footage. “We’re calling the National Guard, now? It should’ve been here to start out. I just don’t understand it.”
“Why do we empower people this way by not being ready?” she added in the footage.
She also questioned why the National Guard didn’t respond earlier to the Jan. 6 attack, saying she felt somewhat “responsible” for the lack of preparation.
“I feel responsible,” Pelosi said to her chief of staff Terri McCullough. “We have a responsibility, Terri. We did not have any accountability for what was going on there, and we should have. This is ridiculous.”
“I take responsibility for not having them just prepare for more. Because it’s stupid,” she added later.
Maher also asked the Speaker emerita about the fear that comes with her job and what she wrote about in her recent book, “The Art of Power,” about the insurrection and her feelings after her husband Paul Pelosi was attacked in their home.
“Well I … let me just say I signed up for this. And as for that part of it, well, I signed up for the public arena,” she told the host.
Quoting former President Teddy Roosevelt (R), Pelosi said later, “When you’re in the arena. You’re no longer a spectator.”
“And I’ve said to colleagues and people interested in running when you are in that arena, you got to be ready to take a punch,” she continued, adding. “You got to be ready to throw a punch.”
In an emailed statement to The Hill the communications director for the Trump campaign said the former House Speaker “refused President Trump’s offer of soldiers and National Guard to help secure the Capitol building.”
“In unearthed footage, she even admits she was responsible for the security failure. Pelosi needs to answer why she chose to ignore the warnings and the help that was offered,” Steven Cheung continued in the statement.
Updated at 6:03 p.m. EST.