Pelosi calls Trump 'stupid' in new book, explains why she ripped up SOTU speech: 'Pages and pages' of lies
'Either you are stupid, or you think that the rest of us are,' Pelosi wrote of Trump in her new memoir
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s, D-Calif., new book is shedding light on some of her most contentious moments with former President Trump.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported on some of the most juicy and dramatic accounts found in her new book, "The Art of Power: My Story as America's First Woman Speaker of the House Hardcover," several of which were moments from her combative relationship with the former president.
"I’ve had a lot of conversations with this man, and at the end of nearly all of them, I think, ‘Either you are stupid, or you think that the rest of us are,’" the congresswoman wrote about her political opponent.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}BIDEN INTERVIEWERS SHED LIGHT ON HIS FRAILTY BEHIND THE SCENES: ‘IT’S IMPOSSIBLE NOT TO NOTICE'
In her new book, Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi slams former President Trump as "stupid" and explains why she tore up his State of the Union speech in 2020. (Getty Images)
Pelosi’s quote about Trump’s supposed lack of intelligence came from a segment of her memoir in which she recounted their phone conversation just ahead of her announcement that House Democrats were launching an impeachment inquiry into the then-president regarding his phone call to Ukraine.
In the anecdote, Pelosi described how Trump called her to insist that he made a "perfect call" to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy about the Biden family’s business dealings with the country.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}In the book, Pelosi wrote that during their conversation, Trump "complained about how this announcement was happening today, the day when he was speaking to the UN General Assembly." She then proceeded to call him "stupid."
Democrats would eventually go on to impeach Trump over charges that he pressured a foreign power to investigate a political opponent, as Biden was a top contender for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination at the time. Trump was not convicted during the process.
In another Trump-related portion of her book, Pelosi described what was going through her mind when she infamously tore up the hard copy of Trump’s State of the Union speech live on-camera in 2020.
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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) tears up her advanced copy of President Donald J. Trump's State of the Union address before members of Congress in the House chamber of the U.S. Capitol February 4, 2020, in Washington, D.C. ((Photo by Toni L. Sandys/The Washington Post via Getty Images))
"I had intended to mark each page of the speech that contained a lie with a little tear in the paper so I could go back and easily find the pages. But as Trump continued speaking, it was not just one, two, three, or four pages with lies. It was pages and pages of them," Pelosi wrote in "The Art of Power."
Her remarks in the book resemble what she told Fox News about ripping up the speech more than four years ago. When asked why she did it, she said, "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."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The lawmaker’s book also touched on other consequential moments from her long political career, like when her husband’s skull was fractured by a late-night intruder who broke into their San Francisco home in 2022.
Pelosi wrote about her reaction to the intrusive media coverage of the shocking attack, stating, "It created a terrible and very difficult reaction for many in our family. The reporting was often incorrect and incomplete, and it would grow worse as the hours dragged on. I cannot even begin to describe how painful and devastating it was for them to learn of a vicious assault on their father or grandfather in this way."