House Speaker Nancy Pelosi continued her meltdown on Thursday in response to President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address, snapping at a reporter and saying that her ripping up his speech made her feel “liberated.”
“You often counsel Members to be dignified in their response, to take the high ground?” CNN’s Manu Raju asked. “Did you step on that message by tearing up the speech?”
“No, I did not. I tore up a manifesto of mistruths,” Pelosi snapped back. “It is very hard for us to get you to talk about the issues we are working on: H.R. 3, infrastructure and the rest. He misrepresented all of that. It was necessary to get the attention of the American people to say, ‘This is not true, and this is how it affects you.’”
“And I don’t need any lessons from anybody, especially the President of the United States, about dignity – dignity,” Pelosi continued. “Is it okay to start saying ‘four more years’ in the House of Representatives? It’s just unheard of. It is unheard of for the President to insult people there who don’t share his views, as well as to misrepresent – present falsehoods. Some would use the word lie – I don’t like to use the word lie – about what he is saying.”
WATCH:
.@SpeakerPelosi: "I tore up a manifesto of mistruths…It was necessary to get the attention of the American people, to say this is not true…And I don't need any lessons from anybody, especially the president of the United States, about dignity." pic.twitter.com/N4PLK1wGyG
— CSPAN (@cspan) February 6, 2020
“It’s appalling the things that he says, and then you say to me, tearing up his falsehoods, ‘Isn’t that the wrong message?’ No, it isn’t. It’s just – I have tried to be gracious with him. I’m always dignified,” Pelosi claimed. “I thought that was a dignified act compared to my other exuberances, as I said. But we will not allow any president to use that Capitol, that Chamber of the House of Representatives, of the People’s House, as a backdrop for him.”
“Now, all presidents have guests – constant guests – that was not a State of the Union,” Pelosi continued. “That was a state – his state of mind. We want a State of the Union. Where are we, where are we going and the rest. Not, ‘Let me just show you how many guests I can draw.”
WATCH:
Unhinged: Nancy Pelosi claims ripping up speech honoring American heroes was “dignified” pic.twitter.com/vvpiC4aKu2
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) February 6, 2020
“So, in any event I feel very liberated. I feel very liberated,” Pelosi continued. “I feel that I have extended every possible courtesy. I have shown every level of respect. I say to my Members all the time, there is no such thing as eternal animosity. There are eternal friendships, but you never know on what cause you may come together with someone you may perceive as your foe right now. Everybody is a possible ally in whatever comes next. ‘E pluribus unum.’ From many, one. We don’t know how many we’d be or how different we’d be, but they want us always to remember that we were one. And they, our Founders, had their differences, as do we.”
“Again, I extended the hand of friendship to him, to welcome him as the President of the United States, to the People’s House. It was also an act of kindness, because he looked to me like he was a little sedated,” Pelosi claimed without evidence. “He looked that way last year too, but he didn’t want to shake hands. That was that. That meant nothing to me. It had nothing to do with my tearing it up. That came much later.”
“And he has shredded the truth in his speech,” Pelosi concluded. “He’s shredding the Constitution in his conduct. I shredded his state of his mind address.”
WATCH:
I checked. The answer is no. pic.twitter.com/Wwl0CiSYF8
— Elizabeth Harrington (@LizRNC) February 6, 2020