News Story

Pelosi posts a tweet that goes viral

By Cecilia Hoxeng

Oct. 18, 2019

On Oct. 16, the top trending hashtag story on Twitter came from the highest-ranking elected woman in United States history, Nancy Pelosi. When Madam House Speaker Nancy Pelosi replied to President Donald Trump’s tweet, "Thanks for the new cover photo @realDonaldTrump!" the twitter trend started.

In the middle of a Twitter storm, CNN reporter Paul Leblanc’s article titled, Trump, tweeted a photo attacking Nancy Pelosi. She made it her Twitter cover photo. Leblanc, categorized the White House meeting as controversial, reporting that it escalated when Trump proceeded to attack Pelosi.

Trump tweeted the iconic image in which Pelosi is standing up with her finger pointed at him while surrounded by Democratic leaders, and he added the caption: "Nervous Nancy's unhinged meltdown!" intending to shame Pelosi. The turn of events occurred when Pelosi used the iconic image tweeted by Trump, and uploaded it as her Twitter cover photo. Leblanc highlighted that Pelosi was brave to convert the image that Trump intended to make her look unbalanced, yet she saw the opportunity as a remarkable “-- and newsworthy -- exception.”

With an outstanding opposing vote to Trump’s administration decision to withdraw the U.S. troops in Syria, Democratic leaders left the White House. After their meeting, Pelosi “told reporters that her line of questioning to Trump on his foreign policy decisions is what caused the president to have the ‘meltdown.’” Leblanc reported that Sen. Chuck Schumer said that they left the meeting minutes after Trump "started calling Pelosi a third-rate politician." Expressing his frustration for how derogatory and notable Trump’s comments were towards Pelosi, Schumer described the meeting as “ a nasty diatribe, not focused on the facts."

Not unusual for the Trump administration, the meeting was reported differently by the White House press secretary, Stephanie Grisham, who said Pelosi "had no intention of listening." Later on that day, Trump made headway, bad-mouthing Pelosi, along with posting a series of images from the meeting over Twitter, calling Pelosi at some point "a very sick person", increasing the tension over the impeachment investigation. In contrast, Pelosi’s reaction to Trump’s attacks created a storm of supportive comments from Twitter followers that went viral. Forcing almost every national outlet to highlight the unexpected reaction, described as brilliant and fearless, creating a proud moment for the Democratic supporters.

College student, America Hoxeng, who is excited to be a first-time voter in 2020 said, “Speaker Pelosi turned an immature and unnecessary attack from Trump, into a sort of statement in her favor.” Highlighting how the photo used by Trump to shame Pelosi, shows the power and leadership held by her. Hoxeng added, “she turned it into a good thing for herself. I think this was a powerful move from Pelosi, and I find it very honorable how she handled the situation.” On the other hand, Tina O’Rourke Roper a local Vancouver resident, expressed how political tweets are hard to know who is telling the truth, adding “they all seem to like to lie so unless you were in the room, who to believe?”

Pelosi is known for her willingness to speak truth to power. The movement created from the infamous trending story encouraged people to use the same image as their cover photo in support of Pelosi. The phrase, "Thanks for the new cover photo @realDonaldTrump!" said by a politician with such a high rank became an important moment for today’s divided society.