Pelosi mocked as 'Nancy Antoinette' for showing off fancy ice-cream stash while blocking aid for small businesses
While President Donald Trump is facing attacks from the Democratic Party almost every day over his handling of the coronavirus crisis, the Republicans now have found an opportunity to hit back at the opposition. The GOP lashed out at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for appearing on a late-night television show in front of her $20,000-plus refrigerator filled with costly ice cream pints while her party blocked the effort to add $250 billion in the pandemic-related small-business loans.
The Republicans went to the extent of mocking the 80-year-old Pelosi as “Nancy Antoinette”, the 18th-century French queen whose antipathy for the poor has become legendary. It is commonly believed that the queen, who was sent to the guillotine during the French Revolution, had advised the starving peasants to have cake if they did not have bread to eat. Pelosi’s display of her personal ice-cream filled freezer at a time when the common American is facing a massive economic crisis because of COVID-19 made the GOP draw an analogy. Matt Whitlock, an official with the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said in a tweet, for example: “This might be her ‘let them eat ice cream’ moment.”
The Republican National Committee slammed Pelosi-led Democratic Party in an email saying the Paycheck Protection Program ran out of funds because the Dems blocked the necessary $250-billion replenishment for the program that the Republicans in the Congress tried to deliver to the people. “Now ‘Nancy Antoinette’ has to explain to America why she chose to show off her luxury refrigerators and $13-dollar a pint ice cream collection from her chateau in San Francisco instead of funding the Paycheck Protection Program which has saved millions of jobs all across the country,” the email read.
Pelosi appeared on “The Late Night Show with James Corden” from her residence in San Francisco on Tuesday, April 14, and decided to speak standing in front of her Wolf sub-zero stainless steel refrigerator in the kitchen. She spoke in length and slammed the Trump administration’s handling of the pandemic that has killed over 33,000 in the country so far, the highest for any nation in the world.
Pelosi, the ice-cream lover
When the host asked her about her high-end domestic possession, Pelosi revealed her love for chocolate and ice-cream and also opened the freezer drawer to show several costly pints of Jeni’s ice-cream that she has in store. The octogenarian said she consumes ice-cream and candy “as much as possible”.
“I enjoy it better than anything else, and I don’t know why, but it seems to agree with me,” she said, adding: “I have a lot of energy.”
Pelosi, one of the richest members of Congress, even said: “I don't know what I would've done if ice cream were not invented.”
Last week, Trump came up with a sudden request to pump $250 billion more into the small business payroll program and it prepared the stage for a fresh political showdown. In a tweet on Thursday, April 16, Trump took on Pelosi, asking her to come back to Washington to do her job.
“Democrats are blocking additional funding for the popular Paycheck Protection Program. They are killing American small businesses. Stop playing politics Dems! Support Refilling PPP NOW – it is out of funds!” he said.
'Get out from in front of that ice-cream refrigerator'
Kayleigh McEnany, who took over as the White House’ new press secretary last week, also attacked Pelosi over her display of ice-cream while appearing on ‘Fox and Friends’, her first TV interview after taking charge, on Thursday, April 16. The 31-year-old former press secretary of Trump’s 2020 campaign, who is yet to hold her first White House briefing, said: “You have Nancy Pelosi who is standing in front of her expensive ice cream refrigerator on late-night television while you have President Trump in the White House – I'm with him – in the Oval Office working tirelessly for the American people.”
"Get out from in front of that ice-cream refrigerator Nancy Pelosi, come here and work with this president," said an animated McEnany. The president has been in the White House of late as the US has seen a shutdown although he went to his retreat in Mar-a-Lago in March when the virus had already started spreading.
McEnany also attacked the Democrats over their objection to the new $250-billion plan for small enterprises. “You had Nancy Pelosi tearing up the State of the Union while President Trump was sounding the alarm about the coronavirus,” she said.