House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Friday downplayed freshman Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s profanity-laced vow to impeach President Trump, as Republicans strongly condemned the language — and the defiant Democrat offered no apologies.
Pelosi, D-Calif., who reclaimed the gavel after being elected House speaker on Thursday, commented on Tlaib’s remarks during an MSNBC town hall, expressing distaste for the language but quickly suggesting Trump’s foul mouth led the way in coarsening the rhetoric in Washington.
“I probably have a generational reaction to it,” Pelosi said. “But in any event, I’m not in the censorship business. I don’t like that language, I wouldn’t use that language. I don’t … establish any language standards for my colleagues, but I don’t think it’s anything worse than what the president has said.”
She added, “Generationally, that would not be language I would use, but nonetheless, I don’t think we should make a big deal of it.”