Pelosi doubles down on 'morbidly obese' jibe, says she was giving Trump a ‘dose of his own medicine’
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, on Wednesday, May 20, doubled down on her comments about calling President Donald Trump "morbidly obese", saying she "gave him a dose of his own medicine" as the president had insulted other women over their weight.
The Democrat leader, while addressing reporters at her weekly press conference on Capitol Hill, said: " I didn't say anything about the president. I gave him a dose of his own medicine. I was only quoting what doctors had said about him, so I was being factual in a very sympathetic way."
"He’s called women one thing or another over time and I thought he thinks that passes off as humor in certain cultures," she added while referring to the Republican.
Trump, in 1996, weight-shamed the Miss Universe pageant Alicia Machado winner by calling her names like "Miss Piggy" and "an eating machine." The Republican, in a 2006 People magazine article, was also quoted as calling comedian Rosie O’Donnell “my nice fat little Rosie.”
The speaker, while appearing on CNN on Monday, May 18, had called Trump "morbidly obese," after he admitted to taking hydroxychloroquine as a preventive measure against the coronavirus. Pelosi said that the president was putting his health at risk by taking the drug and suggested he could lose a few pounds considering varied underlying health conditions linked to an increasing coronavirus death toll. Hydroxychloroquine, a drug touted by the president, has not been proven effective in stopping the spread of the virus or as a treatment.
Shortly after Pelosi's remarks, Trump fired back at her, calling the speaker a "sick woman," with a "lot of mental problems." The president often refers to the speaker as "crazy Nancy Pelosi". The duo has had a contentious relationship ever since the Democrats regained control of the House after the 2018 midterm elections. They've engaged in spars, from the government shutdowns to Trump's impeachment. Reports state that the leaders have barely spoken to each other since October last year.
Pelosi, in her Wednesday statement, also slammed Trump for being inappropriate and said he was like a child coming in "with doggy-doo on his shoes" and everyone else who works with him gets it too, the Daily Mail reported.
"You’re asking me about the appropriateness of the actions of this president of the United States? So completely inappropriate in so many ways, that it's almost a given,” she said. When asked about Trump's propensity to insult people on Twitter, she said: "It's like a child who comes in with mud on their pants … he comes in with doggy-doo on his shoes and everybody who works with him has it on their shoes too for a very long time to come,” she said.
The speaker also accused him of conjuring facts out of thin air, although she did not refer to particular instances. "Look up the word 'confabulator'," she said of Trump. "He just really doesn't even know what the truth is. And just says anything. And because he says it, then he believes it. But you know what? Forget about him," she added while shrugging off the Republican's insults, saying she was not offended.
"I don't take offense at anything. The president says things about me all the time, I say one thing about him and it's like, 'oh,' some equivalence here," the Democrat added.