Can this political marriage work? Pelosi says President Donald Trump’s border wall demand is really about his “manhood.”.
In public, Nancy Pelosi lectured Donald Trump on the Constitution and wagged a finger at him for characterizing her “strength.” In private, she questioned his “manhood” — and her disdain for him became public, again, anyway.
“It’s like a manhood thing for him. As if manhood could ever be associated with him. This wall thing,” Pelosi privately told House Democrats after a combative, on-camera Oval Office meeting with Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer. The account was described on condition of anonymity by an aide who was in the room but not authorized to discuss Pelosi’s remarks publicly.
In the space of a few hours Tuesday, the California Democrat nominated for her second stint as House speaker rolled out her approach to the Republican president as the two prepare for two years of divided government.
“It goes to show you: You get into a tickle contest with a skunk, you get tinkle all over you,” she said after Tuesday’s meeting, according to the aide.
Pelosi is said to frown on truly blue language. But in public and private, she can be unsparing in her clapbacks, and never more so than during the Trump presidency. She questioned Trump’s “manhood” publicly in October at Harvard University’s Institute of Politics, for example.
