by Mary Rose Corkery
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and President Donald Trump haven’t spoken to each other since October of last year.
The last time the pair had an extended conversation was at a White House meeting on October 16, 2019 that included discussions about the president’s move to withdraw U.S. troops from northern Syria, The Hill reported.
Trump placed responsibility on former President Barack Obama after Pelosi and Chuck Schumer pushed the president on how to proceed concerning Syria, a Democratic aide said, according to another Hill report.
Schumer said that Trump called Pelosi a “third-rate politician,” the Hill reported, which a White House official later confirmed.
“I don’t speak to the president. I speak to his representative,” Pelosi said to CNN and anchor Wolf Blitzer during an interview.
“Quite frankly, my experience with the President is it hasn’t been on the level. You know, he’ll say something, then it doesn’t really happen. So, in the interest of time, we’ll work with who he sends over to – if he has their – if they have his confidence, then we’ll work with them on these issues,” Pelosi told MSNBC’s Craig Melvin during a September interview.
“But, you’ve seen on TV any number of times, where the President said, ‘You send me a bipartisan immigration bill and I will sign it,’ and then walks away. You wonder who is in charge there, if he says that and then walks away from it. So, I don’t find it a good use of time,” Pelosi continued.
Pelosi and Trump go a full year without speaking https://t.co/aJxUuq1O77 pic.twitter.com/xqyLfASAEs
— The Hill (@thehill) October 16, 2020
Pelosi has previously noted the difficulty of negotiating with the president, according to the Hill. Trump has changed course three times regarding the coronavirus relief package that has been continuously put off.
“And let me just tell you: I know my customers; that’s what I do. I know Pelosi, I know Schumer very well. They don’t want to make a deal because they think it’s good for politics if they don’t make a deal,” Trump said in a Sept. 7 press conference, according to a White House transcript.
“This has nothing to do with anything other than you have to know who you’re dealing with. I do. These are people that I don’t have a lot of respect. I don’t think they have a lot of respect for the American people. And I know who I’m dealing with,” Trump continued, according to the transcript.
Trump has backed his stance on not directly talking with the house speaker and the senate minority leader, according to The Hill.
The Speaker’s Press Office did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s phone requests for comment.
– – –
Mary Rose Corkery is a reporter for the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Photo “Nancy Pelosi” by Nancy Pelosi. Photo “Donald Trump” by Gage Skidmore. CC BY-SA 2.0.
