House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says Bill Clinton was impeached for ‘being stupid’ as she is asked to compare the case with her backing for proceedings against Donald Trump
- Pelosi claimed former president Bill Clinton was impeached for ‘being stupid’
- Her comments were made at televised town hall meeting on Thursday evening
- Came hours after a news conference in which she became unusually angry
- Hit back at reporter who asked: ‘Do you hate the president, Madam Speaker?’
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has claimed former president Bill Clinton was impeached for ‘being stupid’.
Pelosi made the comments during a televised town hall meeting on Thursday evening in Washington, D.C., when she was asked to compare the case to US President Donald Trump’s impeachment inquiry to Clinton’s.
Questions were put to her by 11 audience members, eight of whom were Democrats, one was Republican and two identified as independent voters.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has claimed former president Bill Clinton was impeached for ‘being stupid’ during a televised town hall meeting on Thursday evening
‘They impeached Bill Clinton for personal indiscretion and misrepresenting about it,’ Pelosi said.
‘Some of these same people are saying, “Oh, this doesn’t rise to impeachment”.
‘Right there, impeaching Bill Clinton for being stupid in terms of something like that.
‘I mean, I love him, I think he was a great president, but being stupid in terms of that, what would somebody do, not to embarrass their family, but in any event, so they did Bill Clinton, now they want me to do George Bush, I didn’t want it to be a way of life in our country.’
Pelosi was asked to compare the case to US President Donald Trump ‘s (left) impeachment inquiry to former president Bill Clinton’s (right)
Pelosi was quick to deny claims that she hated anybody, including the president, after she chastised a reporter for asking her the question in a weekly press conference hours earlier.
She added that ‘hate’ was too strong a word.
‘The word ‘to hate’ a person, that just doesn’t happen,’ she said.
‘The word ‘hate’ is a terrible word. You might reserve it for vanilla ice cream for something like that, I’m a chocoholic, but not for a person. And so for him to say that was really disgusting to me. And of course he was quoting somebody else.’
Nancy Pelosi speaks during a televised town hall meeting in Washington D.C.
After an hour of questioning over the impeachment inquiry, Pelosi asked her audience if they could move onto other pressing matters including health care and the environment.
‘Can we not have any more questions about impeachment? Let me tell you about Spain and the COP 25 and the young people who were there, impatient about what comes next,’ she said.
‘I don’t mind questions about [the impeachment], but to ask me questions through the prism of the White House is like, what?’
The town hall meeting came hours after a weekly news conference during which she erupted at a reporter who asked her if she hates President Trump.
Pelosi erupted in response to a question from Sinclair Broadcasting reporter James Rosen (center-right, arm raised), who asked whether she hates Trump
When reporter asked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, ‘Do you hate the president?’ she became unusually angry and insisted she doesn’t ‘hate’ anyone: ‘Don’t mess with me when it comes to words like that!’
‘Do you hate the president, Madam Speaker?’ asked James Rosen, a longtime correspondent for Fox News who is now with Sinclair Broadcasting.
Pelosi, typically even-tempered, abandoned her measured speaking and became visibly angry.
‘I pray for the president all the time,’ she shot back. ‘So don’t mess with me when it comes to words like that.’