Friday on MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said President Donald Trump ‘s “language” about women gave Rep. Ted Yoho (R-FL) “license” to have a confrontation with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) earlier in the week.
When asked about Trump, ‘Suburban Housewives of America,’ tweet, Pelosi said, “It sounds like condescension and disrespect, is what it does, and it also sounds like discrimination and fear baiting. He’s just fearmongering. It’s just a ball of his tricks that he does all the time, bigotry, fearmongering, condescension, and distortion. But you know what? American women are smarter than that. Again, the “housewives” part was interesting. I loved being a housewife when I was a housewife, but I had other things as well, and I had judgment. It’s sort of in the same vein of Mr. Yoho, and I’m proud of Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez, as a grandmother of two young granddaughters and a mother of four during the course, I’m saying, you go, congresswoman. It’s the same condescension and disrespect.”
Mitchell said, “I wanted to play a little bit of her very impactful speech yesterday. Let’s watch.”
Ocasio-Cortez said, “What I believe is that having a daughter does not make a man decent. Having a wife does not make a decent man. Treating people with dignity and respect makes a decent man. And when a decent man messes up, as we all are bound to do, he tries his best and does apologize — not to save face, not to win a vote.”
Mitchell said, “It strikes me that the importance of having so many more women in the House is that there is more diversity and there was diversity, there was strength in that diversity with the other women House members backing her up, and importantly, you backing her up.”
Pelosi said, “Of course. Well, you know, what was clear from what she said is that what happened that day was his problem and continues to be his problem. She’s not taking any insult from him in terms of any diminishment of competence that she has as to who she is. We couldn’t have been prouder.”
She added, “If I may say, he may have thought he had license to do that because of the language that the president has used in regard to women in the course of his life, and that is well-known to people. And perhaps accepted as something that passes for civilized in certain circles on the Republican side of the aisle.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN