President Donald Trump leaned into his squabble with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) on Thursday, retweeting a Fox Business Network compilation of Pelosi tripping over her words during a press conference.
“We wish that his family or his Administration or his staff would have an intervention for the good of the country,” Pelosi tweeted in response.
Per the New York Times, the dramatic escalation in their argument, starting with the dueling press conferences after a scuttled infrastructure meeting, was by Pelosi’s own design. She reportedly wanted to shift the national conversation off the impeachment debate roiling her caucus with an attack that would garner extensive media coverage.
Her aggression towards Trump is also a tactic to help her not appear soft on the President while dissuading her caucus from going after impeachment, since she’s been arguing that Trump wants them to start proceedings so he can be exonerated by the Republican-led Senate.