House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's television interview from her house on The Late, Late Show with James Corden appears to have irritated President Donald Trump who has retweeted criticism of her appearance.
Although Congress is in recess due to COVID-19, Pelosi has given TV interviews from her kitchen more than two dozen times over the past three weeks, according to The New York Times, in a media blitz in which she has taken repeated swipes at Trump's response to the virus.
In a light-hearted segment on the CBS show this week, Corden, who himself was broadcasting remotely, asked Pelosi what she could share from her San Francisco home for the "Late, Late Show and Tell."
She described her love of chocolate and lifted up a basket of candy before opening her freezer to show an array of chocolate ice cream which had been restocked over Easter. "I don't know what I would have done if ice cream had not been invented," she said.
Charlie Kirk, founder of conservative nonprofit Turning Point USA, wrote on Twitter about the segment to his 1.7 million followers with a message which took a swipe at the apparent expense of Pelosi's home, her fridges and her ice cream, "All while 22 million Americans file for unemployment and funding for small businesses runs dry. Shameful."
An incompetent political hack! Come back to Washington & take care of our great American workers. https://t.co/FZ9mH92j0S
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 18, 2020
Trump retweeted Kirk's message with his own criticism of Pelosi, describing her as, "an incompetent political hack!"
"Come back to Washington & take care of our great American workers," Trump added. Newsweek has contacted Pelosi's office for comment.
The pointed remarks are the latest in an ongoing spat between the president and the speaker. On Friday, Trump accused Pelosi of "not doing her job" and blamed Democrats for the inability to get a deal to give $250 billion in extra money to help small businesses to weather the economic shutdown.
"I think the Democrats are going to do it. Look, Nancy Pelosi, she's away on vacation or something and she should come back," Trump told reporters at the White House. "She should come back and get this done. I don't know why she's not coming back. The fact is, she's not doing her job and there's nothing unusual about that for her."
For her part, Pelosi had not been holding back in her criticism of Trump, telling CNN the decision for his name to appear on stimulus checks amid the coronavirus pandemic was "shameful."
She also appeared on MSNBC to discuss the blistering letter she posted on her website in which she told her Democrat colleagues that his response to COVID-19 produced "unnecessary deaths and economic disaster."
