On ‘vitriolic rhetoric’ Nancy Pelosi erupts ‘outrageous’ Repubicans as ‘sanctimonious’ blames Fox, Trump
In the wake of the attack on House Republicans in the Virginia shooting, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi was asked Thursday about “the possibility that this incident could be used against Democrats or the Democratic Party politically” because some conservatives had suggested “vitriolic rhetoric from the left being in some way to blame.”
Pelosi expressed outrage for the implication and the hint at the material could be used in campaign ads in 2018.
“I think the comments made by my Republican colleagues is outrageous,” Pelosi said at her weekly briefing.
photo/ donkey hotey
“This sick individual does something despicable and it was horrible what he did — but for them to all of a sudden be sanctimonious as if they’d never seen such a thing before — I don’t even want to go into the president of the United States and some of the language he’s used,” she said.
“Horrible stuff that I hear that is crude and disgusting really comes from the outside,” she said.
Pelosi described one person who threatened her and was later put in jail, saying his behavior toward her was from watching Fox News.
“I think a lot of the vitriol and invective — I mean one of the people who went to jail for threats to me — when he was being tried, his mother said he just watches too much Fox T.V. That’s what she said,” Pelosi recalled. “They may be inflamed, [but] this mom said it was Fox News.”
“I don’t even want to go into the president of the United States in terms of the language he has used,” Pelosi said.
Nevertheless, upon a follow-up question, Pelosi cited President Donald Trump’s rhetoric as a problem in the national discourse.
“If the president says, ‘I can shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue and nobody would care,’ when you have somebody say, ‘Beat them up and I’ll pay their legal fees,’ when you have all the assaults that are made on Hillary Clinton,” the California rep said. “For them to be so sanctimonious is something that I really am almost sad that I had to go down this path with you because I don’t think it’s appropriate for us to have the fullest discussion of it.”
