House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) released a mock media advisory on Wednesday, telling the press, “Speaker Paul Ryan will not be available to answer your questions today about his surrender to Donald Trump.”
The alert went on to say Ryan cancelled his usual Wednesday press conference out of fear that the press would ask about Trump’s “racist commentary against a federal judge, and why […] the House GOP wants to hand the nuclear codes to a person who engages in textbook racism.”
Ryan’s office announced the press conference would be cancelled because of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit.
The media already asked Ryan about Trump’s comments on Judge Gonzalo Curiel’s ethnicity at a press conference on Tuesday. Ryan called the remarks “textbook racism,” a break from his recent endorsement of Trump.
Pelosi used Ryan’s cancellation to highlight his difficult position, using Ryan’s own phrase, “textbook racism.”
Pelosi’s primary assertion that Ryan is “hiding” doesn’t make sense, considering he addressed the issue and had a legitimate reason for canceling the conference. The “media advisory” was pretty much just an excuse to bash Ryan. She could have just done that anyway.
That’s a swing and miss for Pelosi.