Republican lawmakers who accompanied Speaker Nancy Pelosi to the climate talks in Copenhagen say they learned something about the speaker in Denmark: she’s a Mean Girl. Citing slights like “not being helped in setting up their own media briefing,” Republicans are smarting after being subjected to Pelosi’s unique brand of bullying.
On the National Journal‘s Copenhagen Insider blog, the five GOP members of the delegation reel off the ways Pelosi has maliciously attacked them:
[It] includes not being invited to attend a press briefing today featuring Pelosi, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., and five other Democratic leaders; not being helped in setting up their own media briefing; and initially not getting access to top U.N. climate negotiator Todd Stern.
The story of what happened in Copenhagen, told to NJ by one of Pelosi’s victims:
“It’s pretty frustrating,” said House global warming ranking member Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis. “They basically sent the Republicans back to the hotel on a bus” when the Democrats went to do their media briefing, he said. “The partisan card is being played on here.”
What does the Speaker have to say for herself? Well, “you don’t need Democrats to set up a press briefing, as you already know,” mostly. From a Pelosi spokesperson’s response emailed to NJ:
“Both the R and D members requested space to do a press conference. Ds got space today and Rs have space tomorrow in the US Center.” She added, “As you know, you don’t even really need space to do a press conference,” noting that Senate Environment and Public Works ranking member James Inhofe, R-Okla., held his own impromptu 30-minute press conference this morning in the media center here.
Pelosi is such a terrifying bully she apparently has kept the GOP’s own media staff frozen with fear, according to another Democrat who spoke to NJ:
A House Democratic aide also said that Republicans didn’t struggle with Democratic staff to get a room for their press conference; they made a late request to the U.N. “They had press staff out here since the weekend and seemingly have not done any planning,” the Democratic aide said.
