Trump Labels Nancy Pelosi 'a Sick Puppy' as Coronavirus War of Words Intensifies
President Donald Trump responded Monday to criticism of his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, firing back at the California Democrat by describing her as a “sick puppy” and a “disgrace.”
Trump appeared on Fox News’ “Fox & Friends” by telephone and spoke about his administration’s continued response to the coronavirus outbreak.
On the subject of Pelosi’s claim Sunday that the president’s response to the pandemic had cost people their lives, he said she was playing a political “game.”
“It’s a sad thing,” Trump told Fox News. “She’s a sick puppy, in my opinion. She really is. She’s got a lot of problems, and that’s a horrible thing to say especially when … I stopped some very, very infected, very, very sick people, thousands coming in from China.”
“She was playing the impeachment game, her game where she ended up looking like a fool,” he added.
“This went on for years, if you think about it. That’s all she did. She didn’t do anything.”
“She couldn’t get bills passed. She’s controlled by the radical left, by AOC [Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York]. For her to make a statement like that, I saw that, I thought it was a disgrace, and I think that it’s a disgrace to her country, her family.”
During an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday, Pelosi said Trump’s optimism that coronavirus cases in the U.S. could be curtailed early on “was deadly.”
“We should be taking every precaution. What the president, his denial at the beginning was deadly,” she told CNN’s Jake Tapper.
“I don’t know what the scientists said to him, when did this president know about this, and what did he know?” the speaker said. “What did he know and when did he know it? That’s for an after-action review. But as the president fiddles, people are dying. And we just have to take every precaution.”
Tapper then asked Pelosi if she was implying the president’s response has caused American deaths.
The speaker responded, “Yes, I am. I’m saying that.”
Neither Tapper nor Pelosi mentioned that lawmakers and the establishment media were focused on Pelosi’s House impeachment of Trump as the virus began to spread in the United States.
CNN also neglected to mention that in January, as Democrats were seeking the president’s conviction on two impeachment articles in the Senate, Trump had formed a federal coronavirus response task force and had also issued a travel ban from China.
It was not until Feb. 5 that the Senate formally acquitted Trump — and by that point, there were already numerous cases of the highly contagious COVID-19 reported in the U.S.
One day after the president was cleared along party lines in the Senate, a Wisconsin man tested positive for the coronavirus. The man became the country’s 12th confirmed COVID-19 patient, according to data provided by CBS News at that time.
On Feb. 5, Pelosi spoke about the impeachment trial — and not the threat of coronavirus — during an interview.
The speaker attacked Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell as a “rogue leader” and claimed Trump was endangering the integrity of American elections after his acquittal, The Hill reported.
Pelosi made no mention of COVID-19 cases in the U.S. during the interview.
Trump also took a shot at Democratic presidential front-runner and former Vice President Joe Biden on Monday.
“The federal government has done far more than if anybody else was president,” he said in the Fox News interview. “If sleepy Joe was president he wouldn’t even know what’s going on. … Everybody knows that.”
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