Vice President Mike Pence had harsh words for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi after the State of the Union address, calling her decision to tear up the president’s speech “a new low.”
Pence spoke Wednesday morning with the hosts of “Fox & Friends” and said that he did not actually see her tear up the speech — he was focused on President Donald Trump at the time — and only earned about it a few minutes later. (RELATED: Century-Old Tuskegee Airman Snaps To Attention And Salutes Trump, Then Smiles And Gives A Finger Gun)
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“I did not see her do it,” Pence said. “I found out a few moments later and I think it was a new low. I was not sure if she was ripping up the speech or ripping up the Constitution. It is clear the contrast here was the president who spent an hour and a half making a speech about America — and Nancy Pelosi, in the final moments, tried to make it about her and I think the American people see through it and see through the pettiness, they see through the politics of all of it and I think what they got last night was a speech that lifted up the country that celebrated the incredible progress that we’ve made in our economy, rebuilding our military, strengthening our courts.”
Pence went on to praise both the president’s speech and his accomplishments, but toward the end of his interview the subject turned back to Speaker Pelosi and her behavior during the address.
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Pence added that Pelosi showed an overall “attitude of disrespect” even as President Trump honored Rush Limbaugh, who was just recently diagnosed with advanced lung cancer. “Here is someone with stage IV cancer. And it strikes me as one of those moments that was very revealing, whether the ripping up of the pages or her talking throughout the speech or looking down, I think it was an attitude of disrespect that I don’t think really reflected how the American people were responding to the speech.”
“Was she speaking to you throughout the speech?” Steve Doocy asked.
“She was. Occasionally — I was listening to the president so can’t tell you exactly what she was saying,” Pence laughed, adding, “But she seemed to be muttering along about things that they had been doing, that I don’t know if she thought they were getting sufficient credit for.”