Pelosi's daughter: Ripping up SOTU address was 'Italian grandma move'

Christine Pelosi, daughter of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, was interviewed by FNC’s Martha MacCallum on, The Story Thursday. Christine offered up an excuse for her mother’s unprecedentedly bad behavior during the State of the Union address.

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This wasn’t Christine’s first appearance on the show. She was a guest recently and promoted a book she’s written about her mother titled “The Nancy Pelosi Way: Advice on Success, Leadership, and Politics From America’s Most Powerful Woman”. The point is that she makes an effort to humanize her political mother. She did that again as she spoke about her mother ripping up her copy of the State of the Union address. Pelosi said that the speech was full of things she “knew to be untrue”, you see. Martha rightfully pointed out that the opposition party is always against parts of the State of the Union address but that doesn’t make the Speaker’s behavior ok.

“There’s always presidents that stand up there and talk about their policies, always people in the audience, including Speakers of the House of the opposite party, that don’t agree … they have different views on the way to fix healthcare in this country. Doesn’t mean that you rip up the speech.,” MacCallum said.

Christine described her mother’s action as an “Italian grandma move” and went on to tell a story about her own grandmother. She said she had no idea her mother would do that as she stood behind President Trump that night.

“In watching that, her reaction to that speech, I thought to myself, that’s an ‘Italian grandma move,'” Pelosi continued. “I saw my grandmother do that years ago in her kitchen when there was a guest at my grandfather’s house … who was rude. She picked up the person’s plate without comment, we heard a crashing sound. She threw the plate away, sat down and didn’t say another word.”

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Well, the Pelosi family may have a history of reacting to expressions of free speech in a dramatically volatile way but that doesn’t justify an elected official – “the most powerful woman” in America – letting her emotions get the best of her. The Speaker was essentially having a temper tantrum in front of millions of people. She succumbed to something that professional women have dealt with forever, which is to keep emotional reactions out of the workplace. Pelosi cannot criticize President Trump as a thin-skinned, childish man if she is acting the same. She is supposed to represent all of the House, not just the progressive bomb-throwers.

Peggy Noonan wrote in the Wall Street Journal that if President Trump wins re-election, we may point to this week as the time his re-election was justifiably predicted. (WSJ)

Speaker Nancy Pelosi shattered tradition, making faces, muttering, shaking her head as the president delivered his State of the Union address. At the end she famously stood, tore the speech up and threw down the pieces.

“But he didn’t shake her hand.” So what? Her great calling card is she’s the sane one.

She introduced him rudely, without the usual encomiums. Oh, snap.

The classy lady was not classy. She forgot she has a higher responsibility than to her base, but—yes, how corny—to her country, the institution, the young who are watching and just getting a sense of how to behave in the world.

If she was compelled to show symbolic fealty to the “resistance” she should have taken it outside the chamber. That place is where Daniel Webster debated; she occupies the chair of Henry Clay and “Mr. Sam.”

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Noonan correctly mentions that going forward, a new template has been set. “Now in the future, all House Speakers who face presidents from the opposing party at the State of the Union will have to be rude fools.” It makes the Speaker just another hack. That is not leadership. Pelosi runs a tight Democrat caucus. The women of The Resistance donned white garments as they have done in past years to protest President Trump and the GOP for being sexist pigs. They and their collaegues couldn’t find it within themselves to applaud or stand for people being honored during the address – including a 100-year-old Tuskegee airman, a young girl wishing for better education, a military family, and Rush Limbaugh. They sat and scowled. Is that really the message they wanted to send?

While the Democrats are looking tone-deaf and out of touch with average American voters, President Trump is having a very good week, especially with the excellent jobs report released Friday. Also, a federal appeals court has dismissed an emoluments clause lawsuit against President Trump filed by over 200 Democrat lawmakers on his overseas business dealings. This tweet sums Trump’s week up nicely:

https://twitter.com/EWErickson/status/1225790740854444032

None of those items are “untrue”, whether Christine Pelosi or her mother want to acknowledge that fact. It is exactly why Speaker Pelosi has lost control of her emotions. She is normally seen as stoic and now that’s gone. Justifying temper tantrums by calling the president a liar isn’t going to do anything for anyone outside of the Democrat base. It won’t sway Independents that both parties need to win an election, either. The fact that the sham impeachment backfired badly on Democrats in the eyes of the public – as seen in recent polls – is behind all of this. Democrats failed with the Mueller report and they have failed with the impeachment of Trump. They’ve dragged Americans through almost four years of turmoil and Trump is still president. Acquittal is forever, too.

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