President Trump on Friday lashed out at Speaker Nancy Pelosi, calling her “a disgrace” after the California Democrat privately told lawmakers she wants to see the president “in prison.”
“Nervous Nancy Pelosi is a disgrace to herself and her family for having made such a disgusting statement, especially since I was with foreign leaders overseas,” Trump tweeted aboard Air Force One while flying back from a weeklong trip to the United Kingdom, France and Ireland.
{mosads}“There is no evidence for such a thing to have been said. Nervous Nancy & Dems are getting Zero work done in Congress, and have no intention of doing anything other than going on a fishing expedition to see if they can find anything on me – both illegal & unprecedented in U.S. history,” Trump added.
Despite Trump’s insistence that politics should stop at the water’s edge, his criticism of Pelosi largely mirrored comments he made in a Fox News interview on Thursday at the Normandy American Cemetery in France before a D-Day commemoration.
Trump called Pelosi a “nasty, vindictive, horrible person” for saying he should be jailed.
“I think she’s a disgrace,” Trump told Fox News host Laura Ingraham against a backdrop of tombstones of Americans who died during the storied World War II invasion. “I actually don’t think she’s a talented person, I’ve tried to be nice to her because I would have liked to have gotten some deals done. She’s incapable of doing deals, she’s a nasty, vindictive, horrible person.”
Democrats rushed to Pelosi’s defense on Friday after Trump doubled down on his criticism.
“Mr. President, it’s completely disrespectful to call @SpeakerPelosi names while on the hallowed grounds of Normandy. These political attacks were not only disrespectful, but they were wrong. The memory of America’s heroes deserve better—our country must be better than this,” tweeted Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee.
“The true ‘disaster’ is when @realDonaldTrump engages in petty political attacks on @SpeakerPelosi when he should be honoring our fallen soldiers while in Normandy,” tweeted Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.)
Pelosi reportedly said she wanted Trump to go to prison while pushing back against fellow Democrats who want to impeach the him, arguing it would be better to defeat Trump in 2020 and then see him prosecuted in court instead of Congress.
The comments underscore Trump’s anger at the prospect of being impeached. Pelosi was one of the few adversaries whom he did not ridicule with a nickname, though he has recently taken to calling her “Nervous Nancy.”
Updated 1:11 p.m.