(Headline USA) Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., refused to condemn Democratic efforts to remove former President Donald Trump from the 2024 ballot, arguing such decisions were “up to the states.”
Asked by ABC News’s George Stephanopoulos on Friday whether the rulings by the Colorado Supreme Court and Maine secretary of state to remove Trump were legitimate, Pelosi demurred.
“Those laws … those are up to the states, they have different laws from state to state,” she said.
“I don’t think he should have ever been president,” Pelosi continued, offering her own unique interpretation of the Constitution. “But, nonetheless, there is a view of the Constitution in Article 14, Section 3, that he should not be able to run for president.”
Pelosi, 83, presumably was referring to section 3 of the 14th Amendment, passed in 1868. The U.S. Constitution itself contains only seven articles.
It was unclear whether the wildly gesticulating leftist leader was having a momentary mental lapse or simply did not know the difference.
Pelosi acknowledged that her own state of California decided that the so-called Insurrection Clause, which prohibits those who commit insurrection of holding office, did not apply to Trump.
“That’s not the point,” she said.
The point, rather, is “that again, different states have different laws,” she added.
Pelosi also argued that Trump did commit insurrection, even though he has not been charged with such a crime.
Indeed, Trump was acquitted by the Senate of the partisan impeachment charges that Pelosi and her Democrat-led House filed against Trump during his final weeks as president.
“I think that he incited an insurrection, and again, that he [wouldn’t] stop what was going on as his own people said, ‘This is your legacy, smoke coming from the Capitol is your legacy,’” she told ABC News.
Questions have since followed as to what role Pelosi played in failing to secure the U.S. Capitol—whether intentionally or unintentionally—in order to force through the disputed certification of the election.
Pelosi was pressed on the issue again in a separate interview with CNN’s Dana Bash, who pointed out that Trump could be helped politically by the efforts to remove him from the ballot.
“That’s a matter that they will have to deal with,” Pelosi replied. “Martyrdom is his thing.”
She then argued that instead of focusing on Trump, Democrats should prioritize “kitchen table issues” that voters care about.
“What’s important is what matters to the American people and their families at that kitchen table,” she said, despite regularly being slammed for her own elitist and out-of-touch ways during the pandemic. “And you have to keep bringing it back to that because that’s what is important to our country.”
Trump’s campaign has appealed the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, which is expected to rule on it soon.
