House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) made headlines this week when she appeared on Anderson Cooper’s show and said that President Donald Trump should not be taking hydroxychloroquine to prevent coronavirus because he is in the “morbidly obese” weight category.
And in a press conference on Wednesday, Pelosi said that she did not mean to insult the president.
Asked by a reporter how her remark benefits the dialogue between her and the White House, the speaker said, “I didn’t say anything about the president, I gave him a dose of his own medicine.”
She continued, “He’s called women one thing or another over time and I thought that he thinks that passes off as humor in certain cultures and I thought that was what that was. And I was only quoting what doctor’s had said about him so I was being factual.”
“I said he’s our president, we don’t our president taking something that could be dangerous, as the scientists have said it could be. If he takes offense at that, well, I could take offense at a lot of things but they don’t really mean that much to me. But again, a dose of his own medicine.”
See Pelosi’s comments below:
Speaker Pelosi: "I didn't say anything about the President. I gave him a dose of his own medicine." pic.twitter.com/d6crKzhg8n
— The Hill (@thehill) May 20, 2020
Trump brushed off the remark when a reporter mentioned it during a press conference on Tuesday, saying, “I don’t respond to [Pelosi], I think she’s a waste of time.”
He added, “Pelosi is a sick woman. She’s got a lot of problems, a lot of mental problems.”
This is hardly the first time that Trump has accused Pelosi of harboring “a lot of mental problems,” on Twitter and in rallies, he often refers to her as “crazy Nancy.”
In an MSNBC appearance on Tuesday night, Pelosi said of the president, “I didn’t know that he would be so sensitive.”