Donald Trump looked like “a scared puppy” before his arraignment in court in Washington on charges related to his election subversion, Nancy Pelosi said, comments likely to anger an ex-president the former US House speaker has long delighted in baiting.
“I wasn’t in the courtroom of course but when I saw his coming out of his car and this or that, I saw a scared puppy,” Pelosi told MSNBC.
“He looked very, very, very concerned about the fate. I didn’t see any bravado or confidence or anything like that. He knows the truth that he lost the election and now he’s got to face the music.”
Pelosi, 83, stepped down as the House Democratic leader last year but kept her seat in Congress. As speaker, she became a leading hate figure among Republicans, in large part thanks to overseeing Trump’s two impeachments. She and Trump, 77, never got on, rarely meeting to discuss government business.
The friction between the two was on very public show in February 2020 at the State of the Union address. First, Trump appeared to snub Pelosi’s proffered handshake. Then, Pelosi responded to Trump’s performance by standing from her seat behind him to theatrically rip up his speech.
Trump gave Pelosi a signature nickname: Crazy Nancy. He has also called her an “animal”.
In federal court in Washington on Thursday, Trump pleaded not guilty to four charges related to his attempt to overturn the 2020 election, which he lost to Joe Biden.
He faces (and denies) 78 criminal counts, including charges over hush-money payments to the porn star Stormy Daniels and over his retention of classified documents. He is expected to face more charges regarding election subversion in Georgia.
On Friday, Trump’s closest – if distant – challenger for the Republican presidential nomination, Ron DeSantis, edged away from Trump’s lies about the 2020 election, as outlined in the indictment obtained by federal special counsel Jack Smith.
“All those theories that were put out did not prove to be true,” the Florida governor said in Iowa.
But like most of the rest of the Republican field, DeSantis has backed Trump’s claim to be the victim of political persecution.
Pelosi told MSNBC it was “really sad” Republicans continued to support Trump, adding: “They have to change the subject and they have nothing to offer the American people in terms of jobs and the rest.”
The Republican party, she said, “shouldn’t be a cult to somebody frivolous with the law and his puppets”.
