The footage was taken on Jan. 6.
QUICK FACTS:
- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi can be seen in recently released footage telling aides she wanted to “punch” then-President Donald Trump.
- The footage was taken by documentary filmmaker and daughter to the speaker, Alexandra Pelosi, who was filming her mother on the day of the Jan. 6 2021 riots on Capitol Hill.
- Pelosi asked if Trump was on the premises and was told that he was not there and wasn’t expected anytime soon, to which Pelosi said, “I hope he comes. I want to punch him out.”
- Some questions have arisen about the exact phrasing Pelosi used when speaking about Trump. While many lawmakers were reported being angry and frightened when word circulated that the Capitol Building was “breached,” Pelosi’s choice of words seemed to indicate some expectation.
- “I’ve been waiting for this. For trespassing on the Capitol grounds, I’m going to punch him out,” Pelosi said in view of cameras. “And I’m going to go to jail, and I’m going to be happy.”
THE FOOTAGE ORIGINS:
- According to a report by CNN, the video is part of “extended raw footage” which CNN claims “shines a devastating light on then-President Donald Trump’s inaction during the riot.”
- “Lawmakers are seen working around Trump to secure any help they could get — from the National Guard, federal agencies and local police departments — to defeat the mob he incited,” the network’s report said about the House Speaker’s daughter’s footage.
- The footage also confirms that the speaker is told by her chief of staff that the Secret Service “dissuaded [Trump] from coming to Capitol Hill.”
BACKGROUND:
- This was not Pelosi’s first time using aggressive language toward Trump. In July 2020, just after an interview where Trump said he might not believe the results of the election, Pelosi also had harsh comments.
- The California Democrat told MSNBC that if Trump would not leave the White House, he would be “fumigated out.”
- “The fact is, whether he knows it yet or not, he will be leaving,” Pelosi said at the time, several months before the general election. “Just because he might not want to move out of the White House doesn’t mean we won’t have an inauguration ceremony to inaugurate a duly-elected President of the United States.”
