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Here’s the Only Moment Worth Watching From Donald Trump’s State of the Union Address

House Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) rips up pages of the State of the Union speech

image: Mark Wilson/Getty Images

There’s not much worth talking about from Donald Trump’s speech last night. It was basically an hour and twenty minutes of lies of all sizes and subjects. That’s why the only moment that is worth mentioning is how Nancy Pelosi reacted when it was over, which was to rip the speech in half.

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As House Speaker, Pelosi sat behind Trump and next to Mike Pence for the duration of the speech, meaning this moment at the end was highly visible.

When asked why she chose to rip up the speech, she told reporters it was the only “courteous” thing to do when asked to bear witness to a bunch of lies and insults.

There are some people saying they wish she’d done more, or not attended the speech at all (or not invited Trump to speak to Congress in the first place). But this gesture has definitely succeeded in redirecting the conversation away from Trump’s terrible speech, as the #1 topic of conversation online right now is her reaction to it.

Choosing to make such a statement and create this sort of distraction also meant turning herself into a lightning rod for conservatives. Trump has retweeted nearly two dozen (and counting) tweets about Pelosi. #PelosiTantrum and #PelosiMeltdown have been trending Wednesday morning. Which is strange because her calm and deliberate demeanor doesn’t look like any sort of “meltdown” I’ve ever seen.

Still, we’re going to have to listen to all the bad faith arguments about how Pelosi hates America or whatever and how this is just the absolute worst thing a human being could do. No one actually believes that but Republicans are really good at pretending to be offended.

You know what we say to political concern trolling though.

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Author
Vivian Kane
Vivian Kane (she/her) is the Senior News Editor at The Mary Sue, where she's been writing about politics and entertainment (and all the ways in which the two overlap) since the dark days of late 2016. Born in San Francisco and radicalized in Los Angeles, she now lives in Kansas City, Missouri, where she gets to put her MFA to use covering the local theatre scene. She is the co-owner of The Pitch, Kansas City’s alt news and culture magazine, alongside her husband, Brock Wilbur, with whom she also shares many cats.

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