President Trump remarked this week that California Rep. Nancy Pelosi, who announced a formal impeachment inquiry against him Tuesday, is no longer speaker of the House.
His meaning is clear: Pelosi, who has been at odds for years with the ultra-liberal, pro-impeachment wing of the Democratic Party, is no longer in charge of the institution. She no longer calls the shots. Impeachment-hungry Democrats, including New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, effectively hold the gavel now.
Trump is not even the first person to suggest this — it was all the way back in March that our editors, tongues planted in their cheeks, recognized Ocasio-Cortez as the true House speaker.
Sadly, many in the press are not bright enough to catch the president’s meaning. Perhaps unable to recognize the degree to which Pelosi has lost control, they have interpreted Trump’s remark instead as some kind of factual error.
The president’s comment about Pelosi came Wednesday during a joint press conference with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. A reporter asked Trump, “Did you ask House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to find a way out of impeachment yesterday?”
“Not at all,” Trump responded. “No. Look, she’s lost her way. She’s been taken over by the radical Left. She may be a radical Left herself, but she really has lost her way. She’s been taken over by the radical Left, the whole Democrat Party. And you take a look at what’s happening in the media today, the whole party is taken over by the Left.”
The president concluded, “Nancy Pelosi, as far as I’m concerned — unfortunately, she’s no longer the speaker of the House.”
There is no mystery to what Trump meant. It is clear as day. But you try telling that to our very bright and well-informed press.
“The president doesn’t get to decide that,” quipped Washington Post reporter and CNN analyst Josh Dawsey in response to Trump’s comment about Pelosi.
Gee, thanks for the clarification!
A Vice headline on the same matter asks, “Did Trump Just Try to Fire… Nancy Pelosi?” Its subhead declares, “No, he can’t do that.”
“Trump ends press conference with bizarre claim Pelosi is ‘no longer Speaker of the House,’” a SFGate headline declared.
“Trump ends press conference by saying Pelosi is no longer the Speaker of the House. Don’t think that’s the way it works,” self-proclaimed “journalist” Judd Legum said with a note of satisfaction to his more than 366,000 followers.
Then there is CNN’s Brooke Baldwin, who shortly after the press conference concluded, “OK, last I checked, Nancy Pelosi is the speaker of the House. I have no idea what he was just referencing there.”
Even better, CNN actually promoted her commentary, rather than hide it quietly somewhere deep in the archives. “Brooke Baldwin examines Trump’s bizarre Pelosi statement,” reads the headline promoted by the cable news network’s website.
Imagine being an American journalist and having an even worse grasp of the English language and its nuances than Trump.
