Pelosi's advice to Trump for fixing controversies: Get some sleep

What would House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s advice be for President Donald Trump? First, get some rest.

“Well, what I have advised him to do: Go to sleep,” Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Friday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” in response to a question about what she would tell the president if he were to come to her seeking advice on how to escape the near constant churn of controversy that has enveloped his White House almost from Day One. “Get some sleep. Bring yourself to a place where the synapses are working.”


The House minority leader relayed to the MSNBC panel of hosts the conversation she’d had with Trump on the night that he ordered a missile strike against military targets inside Syria. Their phone call was late, Pelosi said, occurring around midnight and the president “was going on and on.” She said she told Trump that night, “Why don’t you go to sleep.”

“I think there's something not — more sleep may be a solution for him,” the minority leader said.

POLITICO Playbook newsletter Sign up today to receive the #1-rated newsletter in politics Email Sign Up By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Pelosi was quick to clarify that she does not actually know the president’s sleep habits, and asked if she was concerned about Trump’s health, she replied that “I think his family should be concerned about his health.” She continued to say that “the fact is is that this is hopefully not reparable. He is the president of the United States,” a comment that prompted host Joe Scarborough to weigh in and correct her by saying, “you mean you hope it is reparable.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah,” Pelosi said, realizing that she had meant to say “irreparable" and then joking that “maybe I was right" the first time. "Maybe it was Freudian.”