House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) on Thursday tried to reframe her recent assertion that impeaching President Donald Trump is “just not worth it” unless “there’s something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan.”
In a press conference, Pelosi said it was merely a flashier restatement of her long-held position.
“I made the comment that I made because I make it every week,” she said, adding: “It didn’t seem to catch on until I had a gimmick: ‘He’s not worth it.’ Boom. It explodes.”
“If I frame it that way, it gets more attention,” Pelosi said, denying that she was worried about her Democratic colleagues getting ahead of themselves with talk of impeachment.
The speaker didn’t respond to a reporter who accurately pointed out that she preceded her recent comment with the remark, “This is news. I’m going to give you some news right now because I haven’t said this to any press person before.”
Earlier in Thursday’s press conference, Pelosi said “I don’t think we should not impeach a president for political reasons.”
“If the Mueller report comes back with information,” she began, “I don’t think we should impeach a president for political reasons, and I don’t think we should not impeach a president for political reasons. But you have to be ironclad in terms of your facts, and we’ll see where that takes us.”
