Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi appears to have replied to a TV host in a disarray, blurting out a random phrase in response to ABC's This Week anchorman George Stephanopoulos’s question.
Host George Stephanopoulos had asked the House Speaker about possibility of a second attempt to impeach Trump in the run-up to the upcoming presidential polls, days after POTUS vowed to nominate a new federal justice following the death of 87-year-old Ruth Ginzburg on Friday.
“To be clear, you're not taking any arrows out of your quiver, you're not ruling anything out,” Stephanopoulos queried.
However, instead of responding to the anchor's question, 80-year-old Pelosi blurted out a hardly-expected random phrase, before laughing and then continuing, while avoiding answering the question.
“Good morning, Sunday morning,” she dropped, going on to note:
“We have a responsibility. we take an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. We have a responsibility to meet the needs of the American People,” she said, opting for the most general remarks. However it’s not her beating around the bush that stirred an online debate, but the opening phrase, which made even Stephanopoulos openly smirk.
“When you accidentally hit the reset button,” quipped one Twitter user, whereas another Meghan McCain, the daughter of late Senator and former presidential candidate, John McCain, assumed the House Speaker had visibly “malfunctioned”:
“This is so uncomfortable to watch....And confusing. It’s like something is malfunctioning,” she wrote.
“This clip is like somebody hit the reset button on Pelosi in the middle of an interview,” a third mused, with some others suggesting her bizarre response was aimed at shifting to another subject to speak on.
“I think she tried to do the 'pivot and change the subject', but she doesn't have the dexterity she did when she was younger. And yet, he got the message. What's MORE telling was his reaction, er... non-reaction like she didn't say anything unusual at all,” a Twitterian shared.
During the interview, Pelosi refused to rule out pushing forward a privileged impeachment that would potentially eat up Senate floor time in the hope of blocking a new Supreme Court nomination vowed by Trump in the wake of liberal justice Ruth Ginzburg’s death.
“We have our options. We have arrows in our quiver that I'm not about to discuss right now but the fact is we have a big challenge in our country,” she told This Week when asked about the prospect.
“This president has threatened to not even accept the results of the election," Pelosi continued, outlining the major aim, the way she sees it: As the House Speaker put it, “our main goal would be to protect the integrity of the election as we protect the people from the coronavirus."
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, died on Friday aged 87 of pancreatic cancer. A fierce critic of US President Donald Trump, her dying wish, as she told her granddaughter, was that her replacement would not be fulfilled until “a new president is installed”.
Speaking to reporters on Saturday, Trump said that he was going to nominate a new justice next week, stressing that he did not agree with Senator Susan Collins’ call to wait until after the November election to fill the vacancy.
"I totally disagree with her, we have an obligation, we won, and we have an obligation as the winners to pick who we want. That’s not the next president", Trump said, adding "hopefully I’ll be the next president”.
Trump’s Democratic rival in the upcoming election, Joe Biden, called out the president for his remarks accusing him of abuse of power with regard to his plans.