Pelosi Warns First Amendment Under Siege: “Democracy Does Die in Darkness”

Washington, D.C. - Today, Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi delivered remarks at the Washington Press Club Foundation's 80th Annual Congressional Dinner, honoring the contributions of women in journalism and underscoring the essential role of a free press in a democracy.

Pelosi warned that the First Amendment is under siege, citing political intimidation, attacks on journalists and the corporate erosion of newsrooms. She emphasized that efforts to limit press freedom weaken transparency, accountability and American democracy.

Watch Pelosi's remarks here.(link is external)

Read the transcript of Speaker Emerita Pelosi's remarks below:

Speaker Emerita Pelosi. Thank you, Madam President. That has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?

Thank you, President Berry, for your kind introduction. And thank you to the board of the Washington Press Club Foundation for the honor of being with you this evening.

Let us congratulate tonight's honoree, Susan Page, who is receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award, and Melissa Burke, who is receiving the David Lynch Award for regional journalism.

I'm delighted to join you on eighty years of this annual dinner. Eighty years of this dinner. Eighty years is truly a remarkable milestone. In Congress, we respect eighty years, that much longevity, as institutional memory.

The Women's National Press Club, as was mentioned, was created at a time when women journalists were excluded from professional opportunities, shut out from press rooms, denied recognition that they were earning.

But your founders did not accept the status quo. They organized. They persisted. They fought for access, for credibility, for a seat at the table. And they proved again and again that women belonged there all along.

And that is an applause line. And they proved that women belonged there all along.

I can identify with that, because when I first ran for leadership, the men said, "Who said she could run?" Poor babies. Poor babies.

Soon after I was elected, it was my honor to host a retirement dinner for the legendary Washington journalist Mary McGrory.

Now, some of you are too young to remember Mary. Many of you are too young. But at that dinner that we had in the Capitol-my office was the Leader's office but that had been the office that Tip O'Neill used as Speaker.

So Mary loved the fact that we used Tip's suite to honor her.

Ted Kennedy came over, and he talked about what Mary had done at the Washington Star when she started out. John Lewis was there, and he said Mary used her pen as a sword to fight for civil rights and other things. Father Drinan was there, and also Barney Frank.

And we all made the point that the Pope must have been very happy that Father Drinan, a Jesuit Member of Congress - the Pope insisted that he leave office and was replaced by one of the first gay men to serve in the Congress of the United States, Barney Frank.

And Father Drinan was there saying, "We're getting ready for the resurrection." That's what he said.

Mary was recognized as one of the first queens of journalism. And you know what? When she started out, they said, "We don't want you making any fuss, you know."

She was new, a new woman. "We don't want you making any trouble, any fuss."

She said, "Well, that's exactly what I came here to do. And in fact, that's what I intend to do." And she won a Pulitzer Prize.

So I bring up Mary McGrory because she's just one of many women who were leaders at that time. And I was honored to honor her upon her retirement in the Capitol of the United States.

Just a few years later then I was elected Speaker and had the privilege of addressing the dinner shortly thereafter. I remember the evening very well, for the history and the progress we had both made.

Tonight, we honor the contribution of women in journalism and those who have covered Congress across generations.

And all of us eagerly await the humor of Kat and Madeleine, which I know will be done in the spirit of bipartisanship. Because in our democracy, defense of the First Amendment can and should be bipartisan.

I always say the press is the guardian of our democracy. And that's how I view it.

One such guardian is my friend Jimmy Lai, a British Hong Kong journalist imprisoned in Beijing for printing the truth. I asked Speaker Johnson to call out this matter of Jimmy's persecution when he spoke to the House of Commons a couple of weeks ago.

This was a big honor for our country, that the Speaker was invited in this bicentennial year to speak at the House of Commons. And the Speaker did call out the need for Jimmy Lai to be free, and I'm very grateful to him for doing that.

So in a bipartisan way, we support our journalists around the world.

As we recently acknowledged Martin Luther King Day last month, we spent all week in San Francisco. I recalled that when he and Coretta went to India in the 50s, they went to learn more about Gandhi and what nonviolence was about.

And when he was there, he learned that the word for nonviolence in Sanskrit, satyagraha, means two things. It means nonviolence, and it means insistence on the truth. Insistence on the truth.

Dr. King understood that the truth must be spoken, defended and carried forward by those who have the courage to do so. And I see a roomful of courage here tonight.

That sacred responsibility to defend the truth is a responsibility for all of us. But it has long been the special calling of the press. You who have been among the great practitioners of that insistence on the truth, even when it required great risk, sacrifice and fortitude.

It is that spirit of satyagraha-the truth as a moral obligation-that must guide us still.

Because make no mistake, the First Amendment is under siege here at home. You know that better than anyone. Each fact is challenged, truth is distorted and the press is treated by those in power as an enemy. "Fake news," they call it, rather than treating press as a vital partner.

We see efforts to intimidate journalists, to discredit legitimate reporting, and to replace evidence with conspiracy. That is not accidental. It is a strategy.

Those who fear transparency and accountability fear the press.

Just in the last month we have seen what was referenced earlier. We have seen that fear made real, from the arrest of Don Lemon for his reporting on the raid on the home of the Washington Post journalist.

These incidents are an affront to press freedom, meant to scare, to chill and to silence. But amid that political intimidation, we must also reckon with an ongoing and accompanying threat.

Today, we saw painful layoffs at the Washington Post, part of a broader, reprehensible pattern in which corporate decisions are hollowing out newsrooms across the country.

When corporate interests gut local, national, and international journalism, communities lose watchdogs, truth loses megaphones and democracy loses guardians.

A free press cannot fulfill its mission if it is starved of its resources it needs to survive. When newsrooms are weakened, our republic is weakened with it.

Because democracy dies in darkness.

Are we all ready to say that together? Democracy dies in darkness.

At the same time, new rules governing the Pentagon press corps have raised serious concerns about access, independence and the ability of journalists to do their jobs without fear of retaliation.

This is not the first time our nation has been confronted with the issue of whether national security will be used as a reason-or an excuse-to limit press freedom.

And I must warn all of you, my friends in the press, that now I'm going to engage in a little self-promotion. They say self-promotion is a terrible thing, but somebody's got to do it.

Back in 2000, the Republican Congress passed an intelligence bill-and with Democratic cooperation. This was a bipartisan bill, but it was a Republican Majority. And this affects you. So you might want to hear it.

The Republican Congress passed an intelligence bill that included provisions that would have criminalize legitimate press reporting on national security.

What they wanted to do in the bill, and this is really important, was to place the burden of proof on the journalist as to whether his or her reporting harmed national security rather than what we wanted, which was that the burden of proof is on the government to prove that what the reporter was reporting was harming national security. This was a very big difference.

At the time, I was the top - here I come back bragging. At the time, I was the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee. While I could not stop the bill's passage. I did take it to President Clinton to hopefully get a veto. He understood completely what was at risk after learning of the provision.

President Clinton vetoed the bill and, said his words were "unnecessarily chilled legitimate activities that are at the heart of a democracy."

Thereby, President Clinton helped protect the First Amendment.

Today, we are again witnessing the actions meant to chill the First Amendment's most fundamental freedoms.

Let us be clear: attacks on journalism are attacks on the American people's right to know, and attempts to undermine a free press or attempts to undermine the Constitution and democracy itself.

That is why tonight is not only a celebration, but is a reminder, a solemn reminder that we must protect and defend freedom. And we must insist on the truth, because America is in a crisis of conscience.

We have a president who has crowned himself king, a Congress which has abolished itself and a Supreme Court that has gone rogue.

Our First amendment, a free and independent press, the Fourth Estate is essential to the survival of our Republic.

To all the journalists in this room and beyond, the American people are counting on you, the press, to know your power.

We know you do. And we appreciate that. To know your power and to use it.

You know the power of the facts to defeat disinformation. You know better than anyone the power of questions to expose truth, the power of your work, to inform the American people and to strengthen our democracy.

We celebrate the 250th year of America's independence. Today was the day that George Washington was elected president of the United States. On this day.

And my dear friend Jamie Raskin just gave me a quote from from Thomas Jefferson. And he said, "If I were to choose a country with a government without a press or the press without the government, I would choose the latter."

Thank you, Jamie.

Another great American, Benjamin Franklin, you know, was asked after the Constitutional Convention, what form of government was created. He replied, "A republic, if we can keep it."

Ladies and gentlemen of the press. It is your voice has integrity, persistence and courage that will, as our national anthem declares, give proof through the night that our flag is still there, and as we pledge, with liberty and justice for all.

Keeping our republic depends on you. It has always depended on you.

Thank you, members of the press, for your patriotism. Thank you for your patriotism.

God bless America. Enjoy the evening. Thank you.