Pelosi Says She Gave Trump 'Dose of His Own Medicine' by Calling Him 'Morbidly Obese'

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi told reporters Thursday that she was giving President Donald Trump "a dose of his own medicine" when she described him as "morbidly obese" in a television interview earlier this week.

"I didn't say anything about the president. I gave him a dose of his own medicine," Pelosi said in her weekly press conference when asked about her dig at Trump's weight. "I was only quoting what doctors had said about him and I was being factual in a very sympathetic way."

President Trump emphatically defended himself against criticism from medical experts that his announced use of a malaria drug as a preventive against the coronavirus could spark wide misuse by Americans of the unproven treatment with potentially fatal side effects.

Trump's revelation earlier this week that he was taking hydroxychloroquine caught many in his administration by surprise and set off an urgent effort by officials to justify his action.

Trump lashed out at Pelosi, calling her a "sick woman" who has "a lot of mental problems" after she questioned Trump's use of the drug.

Trump is 73. At his last full checkup in February 2019 he passed the official threshold for being considered obese, with a body mass index of 30.4. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a BMI of 40 or above is considered "severe" obesity, which some also call "morbid" obesity.

The verbal spat between President Trump and Speaker Pelosi intensified on Wednesday — and Pelosi spoke out against the President for being "completely inappropriate" after a reporter asked about his latest tweets pushing conspiracies about MSNBC's Joe Scarborough linking him to the death of an intern from his congressional office in 2001.

"You are asking me about the appropriateness of the actions of this President of the United States, so completely inappropriate in so many ways that it's almost a given. It's like a child that comes in with mud on their pants or something. That's the way it is. They're outside playing. That's where he comes in with doggy do on his shoes," she said.

Pelosi also told reporters the House is considering a bill that would extend repayment and re-hiring timelines for the small business coronavirus relief loans in the new Paycheck Protection Program.

"What it does is extend the time which you can hire, re-hire people, extend the time which you can pay back, and also undo the 75-25, which was debilitating," she said.

Pelosi, referring to the program's requirement that at least 75% of a loan go to payroll and no more than 25% go to other costs.

Pelosi responded to a reporter's question that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recommended firing the State Department's independent watchdog in retaliation for an investigation into his decision last year to bypass congressional objections to approve a multibillion-dollar arms sale to Saudi Arabia.

"That's what I'm very concerned about, because not only did they do something wrong in declaring an emergency, that was a fake emergency, but they undermined the will of Congress," she said.

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