Following President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address on Tuesday night, Nancy Pelosi was seen ripping up his speech, reported CNN . Prior to the speech, the Speaker of the House reportedly extended her hand to shake his, which Trump either didn’t see or chose to ignore. The snub comes just over a month since House Democrats voted to impeach the president .
A source close to Pelosi revealed to the news outlet that Pelosi was not planning on ripping up Trump’s speech and that she most likely did so out of anger.
While Trump did not confirm that he snubbed Pelosi’s handshake on purpose, a Trump adviser commented that by apparently snubbing the House speaker’s gesture, the president missed out on an opportunity to heal the nation.
“The country seems very, very divided but I think Trump made a mistake not shaking her hand.”
The tension appears to be rising between Trump and Pelosi as the House speaker confirmed earlier this week that she had not spoken with the president since the White House Syria meeting in October. Following the meeting, the White House reportedly circulated an image of Pelosi standing up and pointing at Trump.
“You mean where he circulated the picture of my saying ‘All roads lead to Putin,’ that one? Is that what we’re talking about?… We haven’t spoken since then.”
Omg mommy #NancyPelosi pic.twitter.com/IiGuHNWrqL
— The Tylt (@TheTylt) February 5, 2020
Following the State of the Union speech, Pelosi took to social media platform Twitter to apparently call the president out on his choice to ignore her handshake. Writing that the Democrats will never stop extending the hand of friendship to get the job done, Pelosi added that they will work to find common ground where they can and stand their ground where they cannot. She added the hashtag “#ForThePeople” to her post.
Tension between Democrats and Republicans is also continuing to rise, especially following Trump’s expected acquittal in the Democrats’ impeachment efforts on Wednesday.
Speaking with Fox News this past weekend, Trump expressed that he expects to have a hard time continuing to work with the Democrats, although he’d like to. He compares the Democrats’ efforts to impeach him to a witch hunt or hoax, telling the news outlet that they don’t care about fairness or lying.
“You look at the lies, you look at the reports that were done that were so false. The level of hypocrisy. I’m not sure that they can do it, to be honest. I think they just want to win, and it doesn’t matter how they win.”