President Donald Trump hit back at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday in his first public comments after she reportedly said she wanted to see the President “in prison” instead of being impeached.
In an interview with Fox News, in which Trump was asked about the comments reported by Politico, the President lashed out at the California Democrat, calling her a “nasty, vindictive, horrible person.”
Pelosi told Democrats pushing for an impeachment effort that rather than wanting to see Trump impeached, she wanted to see him “in prison,” according to Politico. Ashley Etienne, a spokeswoman for Pelosi, said she could not confirm the comment.
“I actually don’t think she’s a talented person,” the President said. “I’ve tried to be nice to her because I would’ve liked to have gotten some deals done. She’s incapable of doing deals.”
“She’s a nasty, vindictive, horrible person,” Trump added.
Pelosi’s office declined to comment on Trump’s remarks Friday.
The interview took place on the 75th anniversary of D-Day while Trump was at the Normandy American Cemetery in France, where American soldiers who lost their lives in World War II are buried.
It’s the second time he has referred to a woman as “nasty” or “being nasty” recently, having used the term to refer to Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex.
“I didn’t know she was nasty,” Trump said when asked by a British reporter about comments Markle had made about him during the 2016 presidential campaign. He later said he meant to say she was saying nasty thing about him, not that she herself was nasty.
Trump has repeatedly used the word “nasty” to characterize women who have angered him or their negative comments about him, including Hillary Clinton, Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren.
Thursday’s interview was the first time he was asked about the reported remark, as he’s been on an overseas trip visiting leaders in the United Kingdom, Ireland and France.
The question sparked an elongated rant from the President as the sounds of the ceremony honoring veterans who fought on D-Day could be heard in the background.
Trump called Pelosi a “terrible person” and a “disaster” and said he calls her “Nervous Nancy” “because she’s a nervous wreck.”
Trump said that if he had “made any statement about anybody” while overseas he would be criticized.
He said Pelosi “ought to focus” on her home district in California, where he said there are “drug addicts” and “needles all over the place” and “people living in the middle of streets.”