Nancy Pelosi openly admits she's happy to do a COVID relief deal now that Joe Biden is president

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), who has held out for a larger coronavirus stimulus package for months as Americans have suffered under coronavirus lockdowns, announced Friday that she's happy to pass a smaller deal now that Democratic nominee Joe Biden appears to have won the presidency.

"Pure politics," Townhall reporter Guy Benson tweeted as the reason Pelosi had come down from her $2.2 trillion spending demand to just $900 billion in the new deal. But he didn't have to deduce that all on his own because Pelosi openly admitted as much during a news conference Friday.

When asked by a reporter what changed between August — when the Problem Solvers Caucus proposed a much larger package — and now, Pelosi snapped, "Perhaps you missed what I said earlier: Joe Biden pledged to crush the virus ... and a vaccine, an answer to our prayers."

"A new president and a vaccine," she reiterated, leaving no mystery as to what motivated her change of heart.

"With a Democratic president committed to a scientific solution for [the virus], with the idea that we will have a vaccine, it's a complete game-changer from then," she added.

CRUSH THE VIRUS: Nancy Pelosi Says A Deal Will Get Done Now Because Biden Will Be Presidentwww.youtube.com

The new deal is for "shorter period of time," Pelosi continued, "but that's OK now because we have a new president."

When another reporter pressed her again about her motives for dealing now instead of then, Pelosi grew visibly angry.

"Don't characterize what we did before as a mistake," she shot back. "That was not a mistake, it was a decision, and it has taken us to a place where we can do the right thing without other, shall we say, considerations in the legislation."

Writing about the news, Hot Air's Ed Morrissey characterized Pelosi's political maneuvering as "disgusting," adding "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."

According to a recent YouGov survey conducted in October, most Americans blamed the House speaker for the failure to pass an additional relief package. Her latest posturing is likely to only further damage her reputation on the matter.

That same month, Pelosi and the Democrats rejected a $1.8 trillion deal sent to them from the White House. As if they weren't obvious then, Pelosi's motives for rejecting it have become crystal clear since.

Pelosi was re-elected to U.S. House in California's 12th Congressional District on Nov. 3.