In case you missed it, and in case this is your first stop for news about President Trump’s State of the Union address, Nancy Pelosi tore up her copy of Trump’s speech (as I understand it, the official copy he is constitutionally required to give her) at the end of the oration. Pelosi doesn’t exactly exude class on her best day, but this was an incredible display of petulance.
To be fair, Trump had rejected Pelosi’s offer of a handshake before the speech began. But that’s something adults sometimes do to their antagonists. Elizabeth Warren recently did it to Bernie Sanders. It’s not classy, but it isn’t infantile. Ripping up a speech is.
Who here thinks Trump has gotten inside of Pelosi’s head?
I doubt that Pelosi’s gesture is going to play well, particularly given that Trump’s speech was not only effective but mostly high-minded as these things go. Trump wisely never mentioned impeachment, and he included plenty of bipartisan stuff. In fact, Pelosi felt compelled to applaud, and even to stand and applaud, some of the passages.
Thus, Pelosi’s childish move came off as all the more inappropriate
One more point about the speech. If I were a Democrat listening to Trump’s address, I would be very worried. It contained many of his campaign talking points. They sounded powerful and in some cases irrefutable.
UPDATE: This tweet from John Hayward sums it up nicely:
Dems put on a show for a tiny gaggle of noisy hate-maddened lunatics. Trump played to a vastly larger audience, a contrast perfectly captured by him delivering a poetic and inspirational closing while Pelosi acted like a toddler and ripped up a copy of his speech.
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