Exclusive – Matt Rosendale: Nancy Pelosi Nervous, ‘Chewing Her Fingernails’ Ahead of Speaker Election

Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-MT) told Breitbart News in an exclusive interview Monday that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) was “nervous” and “chewing her fingernails” ahead of a very tight vote to reelect her leader of the House of Representatives.

Rosendale, who was recently elected to serve Montana’s at-large congressional district, spoke to Breitbart News as Pelosi was narrowly reelected to serve another term as Speaker. Pelosi was elected with only 216 votes, which is less than a majority of 218 in the House of Representatives.

As Breitbart News’s Matthew Boyle noted, “The fact that Pelosi could not even get a majority of members in the U.S. House of Representatives to vote for her—since the House has 435 voting members, a majority is 218—is a sign of how much weaker she is since the 2020 congressional elections in November saw massive losses for House Democrats.”

Rosendale told Breitbart News that Pelosi was visibly nervous during the vote.

“I was sitting on the House floor, and I sat there for a while. We were taking the alphabetical roll call of how you’re going to vote for the Speaker. And I believe I saw her chewing her fingernails; she was really looking a little bit nervous. I don’t think she was certain about the votes would have lined up,” Rosendale told Breitbart News.

The vote was so close for Pelosi’s reelection that Rep. Gwen Moore (D-WI), who was diagnosed with coronavirus six days ago, flew from Wisconsin to Washington, DC, to vote for Pelosi.

“I think that’s probably why she put up the penalty box in the corner of the gallery, to let her COVID cases come in and vote, and I don’t think she was sure about it. I know that she’s got concerns going forward about how the business was going to be conducted,” Rosendale added.

Rosendale also told Breitbart News that he plans to focus on health care and immigration while in Congress. The Montana conservative previously served as the state’s auditor, at which time he pushed through healthcare reforms such as a reinsurance program that reduced health insurance premiums.

Rosendale said that his experience could help the Republican Party lead on healthcare reform.

He said, “I think that we have to point to the successes that we have been able to demonstrate at the state level; not many of the representatives are going to be able to do that. I hope that I can take a leading role in that. I can point to the reinsurance program that we’re able to recreate while we took off some of the ACA language. We constructed it in such a way that if ACA is eliminated completely, we would still be able to maintain this reinsurance; we could still reduce the insurance premiums on folks on the individual market by 15 percent.”

He added, “We were able to authorize direct primary care facilities and have them recognized as not being an insurance product, and we had such incredible feedback across the state, not only from the consumers that were using the facilities but also the doctors that are running those facilities about how they enjoy practicing medicine again and the consumers are getting high quality, affordable health care and at a much more affordable price.”

Rosendale said that Congress needs to expand health savings accounts to give Americans more control over their health care.

Additionally, he said that he will focus on immigration in Congress. Rosendale said that he remains very concerned over President-elect Joe Biden’s potential unwillingness to crack down on illegal immigration at the southern border.

“If I can focus some attention on health care and immigration issues, the last big thing that should really be the first big thing this city needs to take a look at is our deficit spending,” Rosendale said.

Sean Moran is a congressional reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @SeanMoran3.

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