Anyone who laid down a $2 bet that the “leave Trumpy alone!” message of the day would come from Nancy Pelosi, collect your $100,000 at the door.

I guess she really does have that Speaker vote locked in:

“I wish that the press would spend a lot more time on what we need to do here to meet the needs of the American people instead of morning, noon, and night allegations against the president,” Pelosi told a CNN reporter. “The Justice Department, the Mueller investigation they’ll work their will but there are other things going on that are newsworthy.”

“I think you’d have more viewers and readers if you address concerns that people have rather than just this ongoing, ongoing coverage of what’s current with the president from one day to the next,” she suggested.

The CNN reporter in question was a very surprised Manu Raju, who noted with bemusement on Twitter that Pelosi had “turned into [a] media critic.” Not that Pelosi’s all that unwilling to dish on Trump. She’d just rather wait until, oh, someone’s come up with actual evidence of specific wrongdoing:

Later she was asked about pursuing Trump tax returns, and she said: "I think that’s the Ways and Means Committee’s decision that they have to make. I think they see a path in that direction," saying WH will resist and then "the question is … where do we go from there?"

— Manu Raju (@mkraju) December 13, 2018

Pelosi would also prefer to talk about Trump in regard to policy. She had no trouble going on at length about the border-wall fight, telling another reporter that she’d keep the government shut down “forever” rather than negotiate with Trump for more funding for the wall:

“That is very harmful to our country,” Pelosi said, and that’s why … it’s okay to keep it closed if she doesn’t get her way? To keep from funding a project that Congress approved in 2006? Sensing that she might have gone too far, Pelosi then said, “Let’s not talk about what might happen.” That’s at least a consistent message in this presser.

Even so, why scold the media for obsessing over her opponent’s supposed misdeeds? It could just be that Pelosi wants the focus to be positive for the start of the next Congress rather than on what Democrats will start doing with subpoena power, but there’s no way that Democratic discussions on farm bills will overshadow a president, especially Trump. Perhaps Pelosi’s worried about setting expectations too high for impeachment and wants to dial down the pressure. If that’s the case, then perhaps impeachment isn’t in the cards after all, at least not unless Robert Mueller finds more than what has emerged publicly.

As of this writing, Trump hasn’t mentioned Pelosi’s media criticism on his Twitter feed, but … it’s coming.