WATCH: Pelosi Runs for Cover After CNBC’s Jim Cramer Challenges Her on Growing Class Divide

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday struggled to answer a question from CNBC host Jim Cramer about what he described as “two societies” developing as a result of the economic shutdown, telling him Americans should “do it together” before going on a tangent about the digital divide and “the dreams that people have.”

“As I listen to the changes you’re talking about, telemedicine, staying at home, I think, OK, we’re in a world where people who are healthy, people who have jobs, contracts, they can stay at home,” Cramer said. “I see another world. I see the possibility of two societies developing. [One] society that has to be out there every day in the masses, subways, risking themselves. And this other group of people, safe at home, with all sorts of computers, very rich. A society that is not what you and I want to see. How do we prevent that?”

“Well, let us do it together,” Pelosi inexplicably replied, launching into a disconnected monologue. “This is a moment of truth for our country, about who we are, what is the humanity of America. We wanted to support the small businesses, they are the vitality of our economy. The dreams that people have, the entrepreneurship, the risk they’re willing to take for an idea. So that’s why we all gathered and wrote the PPP [Paycheck Protection Program] for that, so that we can try to reach as many people as possible for their jobs and their businesses.”

Congress passed the PPP in March, authorizing $349 billion in forgivable loans to small businesses to pay their employees during the coronavirus pandemic. The funding was exhausted in 13 days, prompting Congress to increase the amount by $310 billion in late April. However, experts say the additional funding has effectively dried up.

Cramer did not ask Pelosi to clarify, and Pelosi did not offer. In broken sentences, she said loan disbursement “was not being done in a way that reached the underbanked and the rest, to address your disparity issues. In our second bill, we were very proud to be able to do that, as we increased funding for hospitals and testing essentials, to how soon we can open up.”

Without prompting, Pelosi then addressed computer access for students. “But the — if you gave everyone in America, every child in America, a laptop, he or she may still not have access, or seniors, or anyone. But thinking about the kids and school and the rest, if they don’t have service. So one of the things we’d like to see, as we go forward, is that we will have funding for broadband always on, high-speed, all over America. Because now, if they have a laptop, they can’t go to a library, or a school, or a cafe, or any place in order to have access to the network. So that is a — that digital divide is now becoming a digital chasm, and we have to really address that.“

One glaring omission from the issues Pelosi highlighted: Any mention of long-term aid for the more than 26 million Americans unemployed as a result of coronavirus-related shutdowns. Economists expect that figure to continue rising, and to possibly exceed the Great Depression’s 32-percent unemployment rate.

Pelosi, who came under fire this month for giving an interview where she revealed her $13-dollar a pint ice cream stash and luxury freezer, has said she disapproves of President Donald Trump’s push to reopen the economy. In an April 16 statement, she criticized his “insistence on moving forward without testing, contact tracing, demographic data collection and a respect for science and the facts risks further death and economic disaster.”

Watch above via CNBC.

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