Rep. Marino provides details on House Minority Leader Pelosi’s Friday meltdown

Pelosi confronts Marino
Screen-grab of House Minority Leader Pelosi (D-CA) violating House decorum by crossing over to ‘confront’ Rep. Tom Marino (R-PA) over disagreement.

Via The Politico:

Rep. Tom Marino (R-Pa.) on Monday called his recent fight with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) “a walk in the park” after, he says, she called him a “liar” on the House floor.

“She came running over crossing the floor, which is a breach of protocol … and she came up to me wagging her finger and saying that I was a liar, a liar, and I simply said, ‘No, I do my research and I have my facts straight, perhaps you should try that,’” Marino told Fox News on Monday, recalling the event.

“I’m a former prosecutor … I’ve been threatened by drug dealers and organized crime and murderers, and this was a walk in the park,” Marino added.

The battle between Marino and Pelosi began on Friday during a heated discussion on immigration.

“You know something that I find quite interesting about the other side?” Marino said on the House floor on Friday. “Under the leadership of the former speaker [Pelosi], and under the leadership of the former leader [Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.)], when in 2009 and 2010, they had the House, the Senate and the White House, and they knew this problem existed … they didn’t have the strength to go after [immigration] back then.”

Marino’s comments caused Pelosi to cross the aisle, but not for bipartisan reasons.

“I am an insignificant person; she told me that twice, and I just simply said to her, ‘Do you want to talk about this in the back?’ and she said, ‘No’; she was visibly shaken,” Marino said.

ABC News had a detailed write-up about it Friday with the appropriate headline, “Pelosi Chases Republican Tom Marino Across House Chamber”. Video of what happened is below:

Make sure to watch the bottom of the screen when the camera pans to the floor and you’ll see her twice going after him, the second time pretty aggressively.

Now, I want you to imagine just for a minute the level of outrage had this been Marino confronting Pelosi on the House floor in such a hostile manner. We’d NEVER hear the end of it in terms of how it was just another “example of the GOP’s war on women”, etc. But, like I said Saturday in my initial comments on the matter, the double standard will – of course – be allowed to stand in this instance:

It was a severe breach of decorum, but unlike how House Dems reacted when Rep. Joe Wilson yelled, “You lie!” at President Obama during a State of the Union, don’t expect much of any criticism of what she did yesterday.

Wondering what tripped Pelosi’s trigger? Nothing Marino said was a personal attack on her, her party, her constituency, nothing of the sort. It was mere political disagreement. Which, perhaps, is where the problem is. After decades of having to stand on the House floor and ‘tolerate’ ‘intolerant’ comments from the political opposition, perhaps ‘Madame Minority Leader’ had had enough. Though sh*t, hon. When/if the political opposition in the US House starts calling the President a murderer and dictator and thug on the floor of the House like your side did during the eight years Bush was in office, you’ll maybe have a valid excuse for your behavior. But until then ….

Hats off to Rep. Marino, for not backing down from her attempt at intimidating him into silence. We definitely need more like him.

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