House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who recently was featured on a network broadcast boasting of her $24,000 freezer stocked with gourmet ice cream – even as she held up financial aid for small American companies threatened by the coronavirus pandemic shutdown – is being skewered in a new Trump campaign ad as a modern-day Marie Antoinette.
The last French queen before the French Revolution is believed to have made the statement, “Let them eat cake,” when told her subjects had no bread to eat.
With Pelosi, however, it’s, “Let them eat ice cream.”
The ad:
Americans are losing their jobs since the virus rocked the economy.
Nancy Pelosi blocks funding for people to keep getting paychecks.
But she’s got a $24K fridge full of ice cream, so she’s cool.
“ .”
– pic.twitter.com/6KDurMFJDD— Brad Parscale – Text TRUMP to 88022 (@parscale) April 20, 2020
President Trump’s campaign manager, Brad Parscale, explained:
Americans are losing their jobs since the virus rocked the economy. Nancy Pelosi blocks funding for people to keep getting paychecks. But she’s got a $24K fridge full of ice cream, so she’s cool.
“Let them eat ice cream.” – Nancy Antoinette.
Pelosi’s elitist “sense of entitlement” was spotlighted by watchdog Judicial Watch, which put her on its top 10 corrupt politicians list.
That came shortly after it was revealed she had spent over several months $101,429.14 of taxpayer money on “in-flight expenses, including food and alcohol” for commutes between her home and Washington and other trips.
For example, on a tax-funded trip to Israel she purchased “Johnny Walker Red scotch, Grey Goose vodka, E&J brandy, Bailey’s Irish Crème, Maker’s Mark whiskey, Courvoisier cognac, Bacardi Light rum, Jim Beam whiskey, Beefeater gin, Dewars scotch, Bombay Sapphire gin, Jack Daniels whiskey, Corona beer and several bottles of wine,” Judicial Watch reported at the time.
The Washington Examiner said the new Trump campaign ad “scorches Pelosi” for showcasing her freezer packed with ice cream even as “people suffer financially from stay-at-home orders.”
Pelosi boasted of her ice cream during an interview last week on “The Late Late Show” on CBS with James Corden.
“I don’t know what I would’ve done if ice cream were not invented,” she said.
She followed with a tweet: “We all have found our ways to keep our spirits up during these trying times. Mine just happens to fill up my freezer.”
Some reacted on Twitter negatively, noting her tone-deaf attitude.
“While Nancy Pelosi sits in her ivory tower in San Francisco, eating $13 dollar a pint ice cream out of her $24,000 fridge, she is cheering on Democrats for blocking coronavirus relief aid that has so far been distributed to 1.3 million small businesses that is about to run out,” the Republican National Committee’s rapid response director, Steve Guest, tweeted.
Senate Democrats previously blocked some $250 billion that Republicans wanted to add to a loan program for small businesses to keep their employees on the payroll.
Pelosi spent tens of thousands of dollars on in-flight amenities for herself, her family and staff during her previous stint as House speaker, 10 years ago.
At one point she demanded a special treat on her Air Force transport for her birthday. Not just any strawberries: chocolate-covered strawberries. “Dark chocolate preferred.”
She also spent $130 at a Detroit store for popcorn, cheese puffs, Hershey’s milk chocolate kisses, peanuts, Snickers minis, Nilla wafers, ginger snaps, mixed nuts, dry roasted peanuts, M&M peanuts, Kraft caramels and crackers.
At that time, she also was criticized for canceling scheduled flights at the last minute.
Officials queried her staff on the issue.
“We have … folks prepping the jets and crews driving in (not a short drive for some), cooking meals and preflighting the jets, etc.,” said one Department of Defense email at the time.
Another said: “Any chance of politely querying [Pelosi’s team] if they really intend to do all of these or are they just picking every weekend? [T]here’s no need to block every weekend ‘just in case.'”
