Nancy Pelosi ‘pre-ripped’ pages of Trump’s SOTU speech, video shows

A different camera angle has shown how House Speaker Nancy Pelosi making sure her symbolic smackdown of President Trump went off without a hitch.

Pelosi pre-ripped the pages a picture appears to show. Picture: AP

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi apparently made tiny tears into her copy of President Trump’s State of the Union address — so that her speech-ripping moment could go off without a hitch.

As Trump introduced cancer-stricken radio host Rush Limbaugh — who received the Medal of Freedom during the speech — Pelosi could be seen grabbing the pages off the table.

Video shows her making what seemed to be a tearing motion and then placing the pages back on the table.

Photos of the sheets of paper show them face down on the table with small slits on the side, near where Pelosi would eventually rip them into pieces.

RELATED: Donald Trump delivers 2020 State of the Union address

Pelosi appeared to pre-rip the pages. Picture: AP

Vice President Mike Pence, who was seated next to the California Democrat, told Fox & Friends on Wednesday that it felt like she’d planned to rip the speech because “it felt like such an immediate moment.”

As furious Republicans piled on the condemnation, Ms Pelosi brandished the ripped paper in full view of reporters and repeated in the hallways that she “tore it up.”

“I felt very liberated last night,” Ms Pelosi told House Democrats in their private caucus meeting Wednesday, according to a Democratic aide in the room, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the remarks.

She said she viewed Trump’s remarks as “a pack of lies” on everything from health care to Medicare and Medicaid.

“We saw the president of the United States shred the truth right in front of us,” she said.

“My friends, we just have to declare it.”

Nancy Pelosi ripping up a copy of President Trump’s speech. Picture: Mandel Ngan/AFP

That’s what Pelosi said she was doing during Trump’s address to the nation, in which he extolled a “great American comeback” and drew on falsehoods about US energy supremacy, health care and the economy.

Today, Ms Pelosi denounced the Senate’s acquittal of President Donald Trump and said he remains “an ongoing threat to American democracy.”

“Today, the President and Senate Republicans have normalised lawlessness and rejected the system of checks and balances of our Constitution,” she said in a statement issued after the Senate acquitted Trump of both impeachment articles passed by the House.

“The President remains an ongoing threat to American democracy, with his insistence that he is above the law and that he can corrupt the elections if he wants to,” Pelosi said.

The Republican-majority Senate voted 52-48 to acquit Trump of abuse of power and 53-47 to acquit him of obstruction of Congress.

This article originally appeared on the New York Post and has been republished here with permission.