WASHINGTON, D.C. – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is defending her speech-ripping performance behind President Donald Trump's back at his State of the Union address.
During her weekly press conference Thursday, she told reporters that the prime-time speech on Tuesday contained “falsehoods” and she says she wanted to broadcast that “this is not the truth," so she shredded her copy of the address.
"I tore up a manifesto of mistruths," said Pelosi. "Very hard for us to get you to talk about the issues that we are working on, HR3, 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."
Pelosi accused Trump of using the State of the Union as a backdrop for a reality show.
"As required by the constitution of the United States, the president is to submit in writing or in person, his statement of the state of the union," said Pelosi. "What happened instead was a president using the Congress of the United States as a backdrop for a reality show, presenting a state of mind that had no contact with reality whatsoever."
The speaker also fought back against Trump’s statement claiming that he inherited a mess from the previous administration.
"When president Obama came into office, the unemployment rate was 10% when he left, it was 5%, so President Trump did not inherit a mess he inheritted a momentum of job creation," said Pelosi. "When President Obama came into office, the stock market was at 6,000 when he left, it was at 18,000. Again, momentum."
Pelosi also commented on the remarks the president made during a prayer breakfast Thursday morning.
"What did he say? There is some people who use faith as an excuse to do the wrong thing. You remember what he said about Romney? Got that there. So inappropriate at a prayer breakfast. You want to go to the prayer breakfast, school vouchers, women's right to choose, all those things, the right audience for, God bless you, it is a prayer breakfast, something about faith, may not be something I agree with, but it is appropriate, to go into the stock market and raising up his acquittal thing and mischaracterizing other people's motivation, he's talking about things that he knows little about. Faith and prayer."
Pelosi's remarks came a day after Trump was acquitted in the Senate on both articles of impeachment, which were obstruction of Congress and abuse of power.