For President Trump and Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Tuesday night, the State of the Union was hostile.
The mutual snubbing began the moment Trump walked into the House chamber and continued until he finished speaking, when Pelosi stood, an expression of vague disgust on her face, and tore up her printed copy of his speech — in full view of the television cameras, while Trump had his back turned.
The interaction between Trump and Pelosi, who had led the drive to impeach him, was one of the most anticipated moments of the President’s appearance at the Capitol the night before the Senate is expected to acquit him in his impeachment trial. The two had not seen each other since October, when Pelosi abruptly left a White House meeting after lecturing a scowling Trump.
On Tuesday night, the sour dynamic was on display from the start. When Trump stepped up to the rostrum in the House of Representatives and handed her his speech, Pelosi rose and extended her hand to shake his.
Trump turned his back, and the Speaker quickly withdrew her hand, appearing to shrug slightly and raise her eyebrows as if to say, “Well, I tried.”
Then Pelosi dealt Trump a slight of her own by omitting the customary laudatory words in her introduction of the President.
Normally, she would have said, “I have the high privilege and distinct honor of presenting to you the President of the United States.”
Instead, she said simply, “Members of Congress, the President of the United States.”
But it was the flourish at the end — when Pelosi made a point of picking up her copy of the speech, ripping it in half and throwing the pieces on the table in front of her — that grabbed the attention of the public and drew the ire of Republicans. The gesture was particularly out of character for the Speaker, who prides herself on exhibiting proper decorum.
Republicans seized on the speech-ripping as beyond the pale.
“@SpeakerPelosi had a tantrum, disgraced herself and dishonored the House,” Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the No. 3 House Republican, wrote on Twitter. “She is an embarrassment and unfit for office.”
Brad Parscale, Trump’s campaign manager, sounded almost gleeful. “Nancy & the Dems couldn’t stand what they were hearing because it was all good news for Americans!” he wrote on Twitter. “Rip up the speech, Nancy! You’ll want to rip up the election results in November too!”
Predictably, there were deep partisan divisions over who was behaving poorly to whom. Democrats were focused on Trump’s handshake snub, which Pelosi later spotlighted on Twitter, along with a photograph of the President turning his back.
“Democrats will never stop extending the hand of friendship to get the job done #ForThePeople,” she wrote, using the party’s campaign slogan.
“We will work to find common ground where we can, but will stand our ground where we cannot. #SOTU”
During the address, as Trump read from the teleprompter, Pelosi, dressed in white — the colour of the suffragists, worn by many of the Democratic women in the chamber — could be seen behind him, paging through his speech. Practiced at maintaining a stone face, she kept her lips pursed and her eyes down, mostly remaining seated as Republicans rose to give Trump one standing ovation after another.
But when Trump made mention of the First Step Act, the bipartisan legislation that overhauled criminal justice reforms, Pelosi clapped and rose to her feet.
