A Screening of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Ralph Northam: The C-SPAN View of House Minority Causal Affair
In new video footage shown by the committee, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is shown talking on the phone to then-Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam about whether he could send help to the Capitol.
Senate Minority Leader McConnell and Congressman Steve Scalise were filmed working the phones to make sure their colleagues were safe. There are snippets of them huddled around cell phones, with some tense scenes of the rioters chanting outside.
At one point, Pelosi and Schumer sit on a bench talking to an acting Attorney General about the rioters who ransack their officers and worried about their personal safety.
“They’re breaking the law in many different ways,” Pelosi says. “And quite frankly, much of it at the instigation of the president of the United States.”
The footage was taken by Alexandra Pelosi, a documentary filmmaker, and her mother, according to the Washington Post reporter.
If you’ve been watching coverage of the unfolding drama taking place in the House, you’ve likely noticed that the camera shots are not the usual stale wide-pans that saturate C-SPAN on a day-to-day basis.
Usually, the House forbids independent media coverage of proceedings, meaning that networks must rely on a government feed for coverage. But when there are special events taking place in the House, such as the election for speaker, independent coverage is allowed.
In this case, that translates to C-SPAN deploying multiple cameras of its own into the House chamber, giving the public a rare front row view of the high-stakes negotiations between lawmakers.
The C-SPAN cameras show Republican Rep. Paul Gosar speaking on the floor with a democrat. Gosar was asking if Democrats would leave the floor or vote present so McCarthy could have a lower threshold, according to Lauren Hitt. Ocasio-Cortez, according to Hitt, told Gosar that there was no plan to do that.
The image of seeing the two next to each other is striking: The House voted to censure Gosar and remove him from committees in November 2021 after Gosar photoshopped an anime video to social media showing him appearing to kill Ocasio-Cortez and attacking President Joe Biden.
C-SPAN: Why the Government and the Media should not be Behind the Cameras during a Legislating Breakdown or a Presidential Referendum
“We are able to show Paul Gosar and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez sitting down and speaking to one another. We are able to show Matt Gaetz and Jim Jordan talking before the next votes,” Ben O’Connell, C-SPAN’s director of editorial operations, told me by phone. As negotiations continue, we are able to show members moving across the floor. You don’t see that during standard coverage.”
O’Connell noted that C-SPAN would like to be able to do this far more often. The organization has petitioned Congress many times over the years to have greater editorial control over camera shots it airs.
The government should not be behind the cameras, but the journalists should, according to O’Connell. A government entity is covering the government during a legislative day. And I think it would be invaluable to have journalists behind the camera instead.”
Cameras became a powerful political weapon when they were first allowed. In the 1980s and early 1990s, congressmen such as Republican Rep. Newt Gingrich of Georgia – later the House speaker – would give speeches criticizing Democrats meant only for the TV cameras. There would be few people in the chamber, and since lawmakers could speak on any subject, it seemed as if there were no answers from the other side.