Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said Democrats should ‘find common ground’ with President Donald Trump, even as she called for an ‘intervention’ by his family and staff to save the country from him.
Speaking to reporters on Capitol Hill Thursday, Pelosi gave a dizzying series of arguments for why Democrats should both seek closer cooperation with Trump and continue to attack him at every turn, going so far as to claim the president wants to be impeached and is baiting the opposition party into trying.
The presser was meant to address an infrastructure meeting that Trump abruptly scrapped earlier this week, after Pelosi had accused him of engaging in a “coverup” related to the Mueller investigation. Trump had informed reporters of the cancellation at a press conference in the White House’s Rose Garden on Wednesday.
Also on rt.com Trump is ‘engaged in a coverup,’ says Nancy Pelosi“The president stormed out, pounded the table, walked out the door,” the California Democrat told reporters. “I pray for the president of the United States. I wish that his family, the administration, and his staff would have an intervention for the good of the country.”
In the very next breath, however, Pelosi called for Democrats to cooperate with the White House.
“Of course [I can work with him],” she said. “I do think we have a responsibility to find common ground.”
When a reporter asked whether Pelosi might be able to get along better if she refrained from “provoking” the president with insults and accusations, however, the speaker would have none of it. Scrapping the infrastructure meeting was part of Trump’s “bag of tricks,” and her comments were not the real reason, she argued.
“You have bought into his excuse,” she replied, wagging her finger. “I do not intend to [dishonor] my oath of office ... to protect and defend the Constitution.”
In response, Trump tweeted the he was “extremely calm” during his brief meeting with Democrats, knowing that he would be accused of “rage” by Pelosi and the “fake news media.”
Pelosi also continued to send mixed signals on the question of removing Trump from office, arguing that he undeniably engaged in impeachable offenses, but opposing actually going through the process as too “divisive” a step.
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