Nancy Pelosi: ‘Merit’ Is a ‘Condescending Word’

Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is critical of the word “merit,” saying in a press conference on Thursday that it “is really a condescending word” as used by President Donald Trump in his discussion about immigration policy.

Pelosi appeared just before President Trump revealed his “merit-based” immigration plan that gives preference to well-educated people with job skills, CNSNews reported.

But Pelosi took issue with Trump’s use of the word “merit.”

“Are they saying family is without merit?” Pelosi said in the press conference. “Are they saying most of the people that have ever come to the United States in the history of our country are without merit because they don’t have an engineering degree?”

Pelosi agreed that the U.S. needs the best immigrants. “And certainly, we want to attract the best to our country, and that includes many people from many parts of society,” she said.

But Pelosi disagreed with the president’s ideas of what “merit” means.

“We’ve heard titles like ‘merit,’ which is non-merit,” Pelosi said. “It means merit in the eyes of Donald Trump”:

Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston.