“I didn’t go in there to tear up the speech, and I didn’t even care that he didn’t shake my hand. In fact, who cares?” Nancy Pelosi told the Dem caucus trying to defend her behavior.
“But I’m a speed reader, so I went like this through the speech. So I knew that it was a pack of lies. I knew it was a pack of lies, but I thought, ‘Well, let’s see how it goes.’”
Vice President Mike Pence for one thought it was a premeditated stunt the whole time. “I didn’t see her do it. I found out just a few moments later, and I think it was a new low. I wasn’t sure if she was ripping up the speech or ripping up the Constitution,” Pence said. (See videos below)
“It’s clear the contrast here was a 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,” he continued, “and I think the American people see through it. I think they see through the pettiness, they see through the politics of all of it.”
“I just have a strong feeling that she’s going to be the last speaker of the House to sit in that chair for a long time.”
“It felt like it was planned. It was such an immediate moment,” Pence said.
“There’s always a basic decorum and basic respect,” Pence said. “But to have her stand up and tear up that speech really dishonored the moment, and I really thought it was beneath the dignity of a joint session of Congress, and I think it will be remembered as such.”
The New York Post reported that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi apparently made tiny tears into her copy of Trump’s State of the Union address — so that her speech-ripping moment could go off without a hitch.
As President Trump introduced cancer-stricken radio host Rush Limbaugh — who received the Medal of Freedom during the speech — Pelosi could be seen grabbing the pages off the table.
Video shows her making what seemed to be a tearing motion and then placing the pages back on the table.
Photos of the sheets of paper show them face down on the table with small slits on the side, near where Nancy Pelosi would eventually rip them into pieces.
The Daily Mail also reported that Mike Pence accused Pelosi of planning to rip up President Trump’s State of the Union speech all along, an accusation the speaker’s office denied.
But a canny observer caught what appears to be the Speaker actually practicing the moves under the table before the speech was over.
Camera from behind Nancy Pelosi also shows the pages ‘pre-ripped’ as she made her final move when the President’s speech was over.
Pence said on ‘Fox & Friends’ Wednesday that, ‘It felt like it,’ when asked if the speaker had planned her move ahead of time.
The cameras, of course, do not lie and you can judge for yourself whether pence or Pelosi is right on this.
