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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tore up President Donald Trump’s third annual State of the Union speech Tuesday evening, just moments after Trump finished delivering it from the podium in the legislative chamber.
Trump, who refused to shake Pelosi’s hand after she introduced him before the address, did not react.
“It was a manifesto of mistruths,” Pelosi told reporters as she left the Capitol, adding later that her move was “the courteous thing to do, considering the alternative.”
The speaker’s tear, which the Associated Press reported as an off-the-cuff decision, was dismissed by Republican leaders as a tantrum.
“I found out just a few moments later, and I think it was a new low,” Vice President Mike Pence, who stood next to Pelosi when she tore the copy of the speech, said Wednesday on “Fox & Friends.”
From the start, AP reported the event was “awkward” in part because Pelosi and Trump had not spoken since October. The pair’s last meeting ended with Pelosi pointing at Trump over a White House conference table, suggesting that Russia controls him before she exited.
On Tuesday night, on the eve of Trump’s acquittal, rising House Democrats protested by skipping the speech altogether.
“After much deliberation, I have decided that I will not use my presence at a state ceremony to normalize Trump’s lawless conduct & subversion of the Constitution,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted before the speech. “None of this is normal, and I will not legitimize it.”
