“Don’t Mess With Me”: Nancy Pelosi Fires Back at Reporter’s Question After Impeachment Announcement

Watch the full mic drop.

Bill Clark/Congressional Quarterly/Zuma

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Don’t say Nancy Pelosi hates the president.

After the Speaker of the House announced the go-ahead for the House to draft articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump Thursday morning, a reporter shouted a question that caught her attention, just as she was about to leave the weekly news conference:

“Do you hate the president?”

She turned around… and fired back. “I don’t hate anybody,” she said, wagging a finger at the reporter. “I was raised in a Catholic house. We don’t hate anybody. Not anybody in the world. So don’t accuse me—.”

The reporter, Sinclair Broadcast Group reporter James Rosen, said that he was following up on Rep. Doug Collins’ (R-Ga.) accusations that the Democrats are pursuing impeachment simply out of contempt for the president. Pelosi rebuffed that notion.

“I think the president is a coward when it comes to helping our kids who are afraid of gun violence,” she said, having strode back to the podium. “I think he is cruel when he doesn’t deal with helping our Dreamers, of which we are very proud. I think he’s in denial about the climate crisis.”

But that, she said, is for the election to decide. “This is about the Constitution of the United States, and the facts that lead to the President’s violation of his oath of office,” she said. “As a Catholic, I resent your using the word hate in a sentence that addresses me. I don’t hate anyone.”

“I pray for the president all the time,” she concluded. “So don’t mess with me when it comes to words like that.”

President Trump, predictably enough, was quick to tweet:

Watch the mic drop below:

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

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