Mika Brzezinski blasts Trump for 'pile of lies,' says Pelosi was not 'rude' to rip up SOTU speech
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"Morning Joe" co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski blasted President Trump for delivering what they believed was a State of the Union address riddled with lies.
"How do you qualify something as a good speech if it's fed by lies? These are lies that are so easy to uncover on the Google machine," Scarborough asked, with Brzezinski supporting House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's decision to tear up a paper copy of the address right after the president finished speaking.
"I think she sat there and listened to a pile of lies and the only way to communicate that visually was to rip up the speech, which was useless because it was full of lies, and she's fed up," said Brzezinski, adding that Pelosi's action was not "rude" to the president.
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"I'm not sure what else you can do to point out that this man, in front of her, the President of the United States, was not only using the State of the Union as a campaign rally and to play to his base, but was lying to the American people time and time again, over and over again. That was just a symbolic way of saying 'this is all lies,' without being rude," she added.
When Fox News asked her afterward why she did it, Pelosi responded: "Because it was the courteous thing to do considering the alternatives." She added: "I tore it up. I was trying to find one page with truth on it. I couldn't."
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On the heels of an impeachment trial, which is expected to end in an acquittal on Wednesday, tension was palpable between Pelosi and Trump. The president apparently "snubbed" the speaker when she tried to shake his hand as he handed printed copies of his address to her and to Vice President Mike Pence.
Pelosi occasionally shuffled the pages of the president's speech throughout his address. When he finished, she made her dramatic move.
NBC News' Willie Geist seemed to disagree with the "Morning Joe" co-hosts about Pelosi's move.
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"For my money, all the no-handshake, [Pelosi's] not-saying ‘distinct honor and high privilege,’ and ripping up the script at the end is not what the country needs. ... I know those will be viewed as sick burns or mic drops or something in the far reaches of each side’s teams, but I don’t think the country needs that kind of stuff right now,” Geist said.
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Scarborough said it was "preposterous" for Trump to claim that he turned the economy around from the Obama administration and slammed the media for "feeding into the hype."
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"He's riding the Obama wave. It's an 11-year recovery. Barack Obama created far more jobs over his last three years in office than Donald Trump created in his first three years," he argued.
Fox News' Joseph A. Wulfsohn and Marisa Schultz contributed to this report.