Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Tuesday mocked comments by President Trump, who had earlier in the day ridiculed her for showing off a freezer packed with ice cream during a recent television appearance.
“He makes a big fuss about my having ice cream in my freezer …” Pelosi said during an appearance on MSNBC on Tuesday. “I have ice cream in my freezer. I guess it’s better than having Lysol in somebody’s lungs as he’s suggesting.”
Her comeback took aim at Trump’s remarks at a White House press conference last week when he suggested, incorrectly, that toxic disinfectants like Lysol could be injected or inhaled to fight coronavirus.
His remarks alarmed health officials around the country and aides within Trump’s own White House. While Trump later said he was being sarcastic, officials said Tuesday that two Georgia men suffering from psychiatric problems ingested household chemicals to protect themselves against COVID-19.
Republicans have been hammering Pelosi for an appearance on CBS’s “The Late Late Show with James Corden,” where she showcased what was inside her freezer: Dove bars, Talenti gelato and a dozen small cartons of Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream.
Trump’s allies argued her stainless-steel freezer and gourmet ice cream showed that the Speaker and San Francisco liberal was out of touch from Americans suffering from the coronavirus pandemic.
In the Oval Office on Tuesday, Trump blasted House Democrats for deciding they would not, in fact, return to Washington next week over safety concerns relating to the coronavirus. And the president seized on the image of Pelosi’s ice cream.
“The Democrats, they don’t want to come back, they don’t want to come back. I think they should be back here, but they don’t,” Trump told reporters. “They’re enjoying their vacation… if you look at Nancy Pelosi eating ice cream on late night television. They’re having a good time.”