Former President Donald Trump called House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) an “animal” during a speech on Monday and in response, his supporters cheered.
During a rally in Ohio, Trump recalled dismissing MS-13 gang members as “animals” during his presidency. Then, he said the same insult applied to the House Speaker.
“I think she’s an animal, too, if you want to know the truth,” Trump said as the crowd roared with approval. “They’ll say, ‘Oh, what a horrible thing he said about Nancy.’ She impeached me twice for nothing! Nothing!”
The escalation in rhetoric comes just days after a man broke into Pelosi’s California house looking for her ― allegedly to hold her hostage and break her kneecaps ― and then struck her husband, Paul Pelosi, in the head with a hammer. He was hospitalized for six days with injuries to his right arm and hands and underwent surgery for a skull fracture.
Nancy Pelosi said her husband was facing a “long recovery process and convalescence.”
Trump’s critics took to social media to call him out:
This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.
