Speaker Nancy Pelosi's press conference Friday could hardly be considered one of her most historic or flashy. No viral moments, or calling out of reporters. But it was certainly as dramatic and consequential as they come, given her announcement of Lt. Gen. Russell Honoré as the leader of the investigation into the security failures that led to the horrific insurrection of the Capitol on January 6, and her personal reaction to seeing the rioters befoul Congress with their white supremacist filth.
In particular, Speaker Pelosi focused on this piece of human trash: "So many disgusting images, but one figure of a man in a shirt with 'Auschwitz' on it. Auchwitz! To see this PUNK, with that shirt on and his anti-Semitism that he has bragged about, to be part of a white supremacist raid on this capitol, requires us to have an active action review, to assign responsibility to those who are part of organizing it and incentivizing it."
John King and Dana Bash noted the unusualness of the Speaker of the House calling someone a "punk," but not in a critical way. Au contraire. King said, "She's right about the images. She's right about the images of the Auschwitz shirt, about the '6 Million Not Enough' t-shirts, the Confederate flag. In the United States Capitol, the word, 'punk.' It's not often you hear the Speaker of the House use the term 'punk.'"
Bash agreed, but became introspective, and revealed the quiet rage many of us feel about the casual-yet-violent anti-Semitism on display in todays GOP — and our personal connection to the pain it causes. "Look, I don't want to get personal, but this is personal for so many people. My great-grandparents were two of those 6 million. My great-aunt was a third. There are so many people across this country and, frankly, across the world who are affected by it, whether it's Jews or non-Jews or people who fought for the freedoms during World War II to overcome that."
She continued, wishing perhaps that Pelosi had used even stronger language than "punk" to describe that neo-Nazi (who has now been arrested, by the way,) "And the fact that she used the word 'punk,' she could have been a lot more crass, and maybe should have been to talk about that person, because he was part of a crowd that was supporting president Trump and thought he was doing president Trump's bidding."
Bash finished her thought by acknowledging that Trump has now "finally" condemned the violence, but only because he sees it might be a liability to him, as would future violence, the promise and prospect of which has the entire nation on edge. We all know he loves it, though, don't we?
