On Twitter Tuesday, President Trump noted that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi appeared Tuesday morning on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” and concluded — after some sharp slaps at the Democratic leader and the show — that Pelosi’s performance actually “wasn’t bad.”
While Trump has repeatedly hammered Pelosi for her eleventh-hour interference last week in the Senate’s historic $2.2 trillion economic relief bill, which is designed to help Americans amid the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, he took a slightly different tone in response to the speaker’s appearance on “Morning Joe” Tuesday morning (video below).
“I watched a portion of low rated (very) Morning Psycho (Joe) this Morning in order to see what Nancy Pelosi had to say, [and] what moves she was planning to further hurt our Country,” Trump tweeted in reference to MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” the hosts of which have been engaged in a long public feud with the president. “Actually, other than her usual complaining that I’m a terrible person, she wasn’t bad.”
“Still praying!” he added, in apparent reference to Pelosi famously claiming that she prays for him every day.
I watched a portion of low rated (very) Morning Psycho (Joe) this Morning in order to see what Nancy Pelosi had to say, & what moves she was planning to further hurt our Country. Actually, other than her usual complaining that I’m a terrible person, she wasn’t bad. Still praying!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 31, 2020
“Morning Joe” co-host Mika Brzezinski welcomed Speaker Pelosi onto the show Tuesday by asking her a loaded question about Trump’s handling of the crisis, which recent polls found is getting high marks from a majority of Americans.
“I’ll start by asking you, there have been so many questions about the president’s leadership through this crisis, his lack of action,” said Brzezinski. “If you could speak to him directly, what do you wish that he would be doing now that he is not doing?”
Instead of immediately taking the opportunity to bash Trump presented by the MSNBC host, Pelosi first offered a word of solidarity with the nation.
“First, let me just join you in mourning the loss of so many lives and the prospect of more to come,” said the speaker. “We all come to this discussion with very heavy hearts about what we need to do to prevent more of a spread of this.”
Pelosi then provided her answer, which was not as combative as Brzezinski and her co-host Joe Scarborough likely expected: “And so, to the president, I would join those — whether it’s the governors, the mayors, people across the country — who are saying we need the equipment, the personal protective equipment for the workers, the ventilators and other equipment for the patients,” said the Democratic leader. “We need proper testing, testing, testing.”
“So I would say to the president, immediately, implement the Defense Production Act, insisting that businesses in our country turn to producing the equipment that we need,” Pelosi continued. “The American people, their representatives, officialdom, all the rest, are united in that recognition of that need. It will save lives.”
“We’re asking people to risk their lives to save other lives,” she continued. “We’re asking people to make judgments about who gets a ventilator or not. That should not be happening. One thing that we could do, that we all agree on — Democrats and Republicans alike — PPE, personal protection equipment, as well as the equipment to save the patients’ lives.”
Video below via MSNBC:
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