As my pal and Townhall colleague Guy Benson commented, “Pure politics.” Why did Nancy Pelosi choose now to come down from her $2.5 trillion demand for COVID-19 relief? As I mentioned earlier and as a reporter reminded Pelosi this morning, the August proposal from the Problem Solvers Caucus offered more money than the centrist “framework” proposal does now, and would have avoided the economic damage over the last couple of months. So why negotiate on a figure that’s only 36% of what Pelosi demanded for the last six months?

Simple, Pelosi replied. Donald Trump lost the election, and now she’s willing to deal:

PELOSI has held out for a big deal for 6 or so months. She said this morning that now that BIDEN is president, she is willing to do a smaller deal.

— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) December 4, 2020

“Perhaps you missed what I said earlier: Joe Biden pledged to crush the virus,” she snapped at a reporter, saying unlike Donald Trump, the president-elect wants to pass an even larger economic stimulus package after he takes office next month.

In her telling, embracing a $900m package introduced this week by a group of Democrats and Republicans is a reflection of new realities – and incoming Democratic chief executive and coming coronavirus vaccines.

“Don’t characterize what we did … as a mistake,” Ms Pelosi said of her months-long holding out for the kind of $2trn measure her chamber passed earlier this year but was blocked by the White House and Senate Republicans. “It was a decision, and it’s taken us to a place we can do the right thing. … I’m very proud of where we are.”

Total. Garbage. What makes this even more total garbage is that she’s essentially crediting Joe Biden with the vaccine, which is an absurdity beyond belief. It’s a “total game changer,” Pelosi says, even though it was Donald Trump’s Operation Warp Speed program that created the game-changer. It’s also been well-known that the vaccines would come before the end of the year, and almost arrived before the election itself.

Furthermore, Trump wasn’t an obstacle to spending more on relief — he was mainly Pelosi’s ally on that, even if he thought some of the spending priorities should be different. At one time, Trump even suggested adding together the plans from Pelosi and Mitch McConnell to spend almost $4 trillion, although Senate Republicans immediately balked at the suggestion.

This is an admission from Pelosi that she held up any relief to undermine Trump in the election. Under the circumstances, it’s disgusting, and this stench should stick to Pelosi just as the nuclear option and the Romney smear stenches stick to Harry Reid. Republicans should remind voters of this every day between now and the midterms, and it should be running as an ad in Georgia before the weekend is up. Shameful.