Speaker Nancy Pelosi compared Donald Trump and his top aides to children with “doggy doo” on their shoes on Wednesday, the latest in a recent string of personal insults against the president.
“It’s almost like a child who comes in with mud on their pants or something. … He comes in with doggy doo on his shoes, and everybody who works with him has [it] on their shoes, too, for a very long time to come.”
Ms. Pelosi called Mr. Trump “morbidly obese” in an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper earlier this week. Mr. Trump’s most recent physical exam does indeed show that he can be medically classified as obese.
The speaker said she made her comments about the president’s weight, in a criticism of his use of the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine as a precautionary step to stave off symptoms of Covid-19, to give the president “a dose of his own medicine.”
“He’s called women one thing or another over time, and I feel like he thinks that passes off as humor in certain cultures, and I thought that was what that was,” Ms. Pelosi said.
“I was only quoting what doctors had said about him, so I was being factual and in a very sympathetic way of stating … that we don’t want our president taking something that could be dangerous,” she said.
Ms. Pelosi indicated that she has conditioned herself to have a thick skin regarding the president’s insults.
“I could take offense at a lot of things, but they don’t really mean that much to me. But again, a dose of his own medicine,” she said.
Ms. Pelosi’s newest insults likening the president to a child with dog feces on his shoes were made in exasperation over a question from a reporter about the appropriateness of the president’s claims on Twitter that MSNBC host Joe Scarborough had murdered a congressional aide when he was a House member.
“You are asking me about the appropriateness of the actions of this President of the United States? [That’s] completely inappropriate in so many ways,” she said.
“It’s so unimportant,” Ms. Pelosi said later in the press conference of her spats with the president.
Mr. Trump and Ms. Pelosi’s relationship had deteriorated to the point where they do not talk directly, even though they have both needed each other to pass important legislation such as coronavirus response bills and annual government spending bills.
Mr. Trump responded, who often refers to the speaker as “Crazy Nancy” on Twitter, told reporters on Tuesday that Ms. Pelosi’s comment about his weight was indicative of a declining mental state.
“Pelosi is a sick woman. She’s got a lot of problems, a lot of mental problems. We’re dealing with people that have to get their act together for the good of the country,” Mr. Trump said.
The recent escalation of tensions between Ms. Pelosi and Mr. Trump comes as House Democrats try to negotiate the fifth piece of coronavirus legislation with the White House and congressional Republicans.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who has a good working relationship with Democratic leaders, has been the primary liaison between the White House and Congress.
The House passed a bill with more than $3trn last Friday to address the health crisis by authorizing another round of stimulus checks for most Americans, giving more money to states and local governments, providing more funding for hospitals and other health networks, and a host of other liberal priorities.
The bill will languish in the Republican-controlled Senate, GOP leaders have said, criticizing the bill for its exorbitant cost and saying it includes extraneous measures from previous House-passed bills Senate Republicans have no interest in voting on.