Nancy Pelosi on President Trump’s State of the Union Address

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: OK. So, that’s what I’m asking you. Are you giving a signal that the Democrats will fight back hard, that you will not be constrained by what you believe to be insurgent behavior on the other side and that this is, you know, a time to go mano a mano?

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): Well, let me say this. I had no intention of doing that when we went to the State of the Union. That was well into a passive assertive. Now, I’m a speed reader, so I was reading ahead. I knew what was there. And I got past like about a third of it and I thought, this is terrible. And (INAUDIBLE) on a couple of pages thinking I ought to remember what’s on this page and on this page and then I realized that almost every page had something in it that was objectionable. So, it wasn’t a planned thing, but it was — one of my disappointments is the fact that with all that we have done legislatively, whether it’s equal pay for equal work, raising the minimum wage, gun violence protection, issues that relate to our children, the list goes on, climate action now, we have very little press on it. And it seems that if you want to get press, you have to get attention. So, I thought well, let’s get attention on the fact that what he said here today was not true. Now, I’m departing from my offshore — not criticizing the president offshore. But when you ask about the — I’m not talking about him personally. I’m just talking about his State of the Union Address.

AMANPOUR: I understand. What about, though, the fact that the president seems liberated — and this is did democratic politics, so I’m not asking you to criticize here. But he was acquitted, his poll ratings are high —

PELOSI: There was no acquittal.

AMANPOUR: By the Senate.

PELOSI: You can’t have an acquittal unless a trial. And you can’t have a trial when you have witnesses and documents. So, he can say he’s acquitted and the headlines can say acquitted but he’s impeached forever, branded with that and not vindicated. And even the senators were saying, yes, it wasn’t right. But they didn’t have the courage to act upon that.

AMANPOUR: Except for?

PELOSI: Except for Mitt Romney. God bless him. And then the president criticized him for using his faith to do something he knew was wrong. How could you — well, I don’t know if the president is a person of faith. It’s not for me to make that judgement.

AMANPOUR: He criticized you about saying that you pray too as well.

PELOSI: He said I didn’t pray for him. But I feel like if he’s a person of faith he would recognize another person of faith. And if he prayed, he would recognize that other people do, even for him.