Pelosi slams 'attitude of lawlessness' in San Francisco, says 'I don't know' where it comes from

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San Francisco mayor unveils proposal to bolster policing, combat crime surge

Senior correspondent Claudia Cowan reports the latest on the crime wave from Sausalito, California.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Wednesday decried recent crime waves, including organized retail theft, in San Francisco and elsewhere in the U.S. as "outrageous" and decried "an attitude of lawlessness" she said is behind it. 

Pelosi, D-Calif., made the comments when asked about recent comments from San Francisco Mayor London Breed, who is pushing a renewed effort to "change course on how we public safety" and crack down on crime. 

"It's absolutely outrageous. Obviously it cannot continue," Pelosi said. "But the fact is that there is an attitude of lawlessness in our country that springs from I don't know where… and we cannot have that lawlessness become the norm."

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"These people coordinate with each other and they plan traffic patterns and the rest so they can reach their goal and depart very quickly," Pelosi added of the brazen retail thefts that are grabbing nationwide headlines. ""This isn't like somebody stealing something to go home because they don't have money to buy. This is about stealing for profit."

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., pauses while speaking to reporters during her weekly news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Dec. 15, 2021. (REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz)

The House speaker said an upcoming bill in the chamber could include multiple provisions that address the source of income for those "stealing for profit," which is often online. 

"Within that bill, the Energy and Commerce Committee has something called INFORM… legislation that would require those who are selling online especially is to establish their legitimacy as to where these products came from. Because what people do is they steal things and they sell them online," Pelosi said.

"The Judiciary Committee has a bill, Save Shopping, which addresses the same problem in of a different way in terms of holding platforms accountable and those selling things accountable for the prominence of those goods," she added. "Out of the question that people should be able to think that they can just steal things, profit from them and not have accountability." 

Pelosi also in her press conference touted the passage of a bill in the House to combat Islamophobia and a separate one condemning Chinese oppression of Uyghur Muslims. 

"That's genocide," Pelosi said of how the Chinese Communist Party is treating that ethnic minority.

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The speaker also said she hopes the Senate will pass Democrats massive reconciliation spending bill soon. She specifically touted the child care provisions in the bill and child tax credit checks – the last of which is being sent out Wednesday unless Congress passes legislation to renew it.

But she did not address criticism of the child care provisions in the bill that many are warning could nearly double the annual price of child care for many middle class families by imposing costly new regulations and salary requirements on child care facilities.

Fox News' Chad Pergram contributed to this report.