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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi: it’s a “waste of my time” to talk about “what Republicans say”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi: it’s a “waste of my time” to talk about “what Republicans say”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) responded to Republican criticism of the impeachment inquiry that she and her fellow Democrats have been conducting —with Donald Trump squarely in their crosshairs — by saying that commenting on their objections and defenses of the president was a “waste of time” for her.

Appearing on CBS’ Face the Nation this morning, Speaker Pelosi was dismissive of her GOP colleagues in Congress whom she considers detached from reality.

“I really have a real discomfort level of responding to what Republicans say because they are in denial about what has happened in the country,” Pelosi said to Face the Nation host Margaret Brennan. “So if you want to ask me about where we’re going on this, I’m happy to respond to that. But I find it a waste of my time and yours to just be talking about what Republicans say.”

Add your name to tell Congress to investigate Pence for his role in Trump’s Ukraine corruption. The VP is complicit!

Brennan pushed Pelosi by saying that she was merely providing the House Speaker with the chance to rebut Republican talking points denouncing the investigation as a sham witch hunt, but the Speaker was not taking the bait.

“I don’t want to respond,” she replied. “Let their arguments stand, because there’s so much quicksand that I don’t even want to have it given any more visibility by my dignifying any of their misrepresentations of what they say,” Pelosi continued.

“I say to everybody else, I’m not here to talk about what they say because they’re not facing the reality of what is happening to our country. And this is about our democracy that is at risk with this president in the White House,” she said.

Despite Pelosi’s insistence that she would not respond to GOP criticism of the impeachment inquiry, she did find the time to demolish the argument that because Trump’s scheme — his plan to hold up military assistance to Ukraine until the newly elected government in that country committed to investigating his rival Joe Biden and his — was not successful, it did not constitute an impeachable offense.

“The Republicans like to say, if you want to talk about them, ‘oh, it doesn’t matter the aid was released.’ No, the whistle was blown. The whistle was blown. And that was blown long before we heard about it,” the House Speaker said. “Don’t forget that in, in between all of that came, the inspector general, an inspector general appointed by President Trump. And the inspector general said that this was of urgent concern. And so that is what intervened.”

Pelosi summed up the first week of public impeachment hearings by confirming that this was not a good week for Donald Trump.

“I think the American people have had a good week. I think truth has had a good week. I think patriotism has had a good week,” she contrasted the president’s disastrous experience the past few days with that of the rest of the country.

The House Speaker also offered her thoughts on why the president feels the need to act like a rabid bulldog on Twitter — attacking his detractors with a hail of insults — with a vicious, if casually delivered, put down that spoke to the basis of Trump’s insecurity in his job.

You can watch more clips of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi speaking on CBS’ Face the Nation in the video excerpts below.

Follow Vinnie Longobardo on Twitter.

Original reporting by Zack Budryk at The Hill.

Vinnie Longobardo
Managing Editor
Vinnie Longobardo is the Managing Editor of Occupy Democrats. He's a 35-year veteran of the TV, mobile & internet industries, specializing in start-ups and the international media business. His passions are politics, music, and art.

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