Eric Reads The News is a daily humor column which skewers politics, pop culture, celebrity, shade, and schadenfreude. .

Friends, please pull up your Rolodexes, your Franklin Covey planners, your Palm Pilots, and add Nancy Pelosi to the list of people you don't want to ever come for unless she sends for you. You may think, Oh, she sent for me. You are mistaken. She has not. Return to your seat.

One reporter learned that lesson yesterday after lobbing a strangely worded question at the Speaker of the House. Coming from a House Gun Violence Prevention Task Force forum on "the urgent need for the Senate action," Nancy Pelosi was asked by a reporter "do you have any regrets about not bringing the House back in August to keep the flame lit on gun violence?" Pelosi responded by cordially and calming reciting the entire Samuel L. Jackson speech from Pulp Fiction.

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Pressed on congressional response on gun violence, Speaker Pelosi says, "Senator McConnell hasn't acted. Why don't you go ask him if he has any regrets for all the people who died because he hasn't acted?" https://t.co/VpvdcT3aeM pic.twitter.com/9CJ1XRsgpw — ABC News (@ABC) September 11, 2019

First of all, whew my goodness, this question. What is it and why is it happening? Are questions canceled? Stay tuned; maybe so. I don't know about Pelosi but I have some regrets: namely that reporters are out here besmirching Brenda Starr's good name asking these ham-fisted questions. What in the both sides hell? Who do you think you are, Joni Mitchell?

And what, pray tell, is "keeping the flame lit on gun violence"? It's not an Olympic torch, friend; it's a national crisis. This reporter wants to know why Nancy Pelosi let the buzz simmer down on America's hottest club, 2A? I mean, I guess I see the note behind the note but the note before the note is nope.

Rep. Pelosi was similarly not here for this question and the ferocity of her response blew the foam off my too-early-but-I-don't-care pumpkin spice latte and exfoliated my skin. I love that the video cuts in right as a car horn is blasting nearby. It's like Lightning McQueen rolled by and was like, "Y'all better buckle up! Cuz she has had it! Toot toot beep beep, fools!"

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"No," she starts off, "absolutely not. The Senate was supposed to come back. Why don't you all get that straight?" Already, we are in trouble. This is that kind of question you get from a frustrated parent when you're in trouble, the question you're pretty sure is rhetorical but you're sure that if you don't answer, you're going to get into more trouble. And also if you do answer you're going to get in more trouble. Bottom line: you, trouble, together forever. Nancy Pelosi wants you to call all your little reporter friends and figure it out! You need to get on Slack and start a group chat with April O'Neil and Perry White and get to the bottom of it tout suite.

Nancy Pelosi often has the measured, diplomatic demeanor of a lifelong public servant used to dealing with all types when she has had it, she has had it. And, class, what did she have?

Answer:

Warner Bros.

(If you answered Pennywise, I'm mad at you but I do understand.)

And the escalation of her frustration is a work of art. She starts off at slightly peeved Sunday School teacher and ends up at "They didn't get out of the cockadoodie car!"

She continues, "I'm getting very frustrated with the silliness of these questions" and never has the word "silliness" carried more weight. It's that thing where your grandmother is angry at you and uses a cute, folksy turn of phrase and you have to bite the inside of your cheek to keep from cracking a smile and inciting more of her adorable righteous rage. She's like "Ah fiddlesticks, I'm sick of these nincompoops!" Nancy Pelosi in this moment is a Bree Van de Kamp sun and a Dorothy Zbornak moon and I am in awe. This is the greatest "I was told by AppleCare" that ever was. And she's completely right! She was told by AppleCare. Bring her the switch! All this silliness!

Let me pause, briefly, here to show up a diptych I just found of Nancy Pelosi, on another day, looking into a View Finder doohickey and then Nancy Pelosi being unimpressed by what she saw in the View Finder doohickey:

DAVID VINCENT Getty Images

DAVID VINCENT Getty Images

This existential ennui: I crave it.

Okay, back to the matter at hand. This video has huge Julia Sugarbaker energy, which is the highest compliment I can give a public speaker making a bold declaration live in front of a studio audience. Rep. Pelosi was like, "and that, Marjorie—just so you know and your children will someday know—" and the reporter was like, "who is Marjorie?"



If you don't know who the Marjorie in your life is, you're Marjorie. That's just facts.

Rep. Pelosi ramps up in the final seconds of the video: "Don't ask me what we haven't done! We have done it!" with a swipe of her hand and a sharp point that would make Taylor Armstrong of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills disintegrate.

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Pelosi's arms movements! The OA is quaking! You won't see hand chops as smooth as these anywhere outside of the Food Network. That air is sliced.

What you don't see at that end of this clip is after Rep. Pelosi walks away, the Muses from Hercules pop up and belt "And that's the gospel truth!" It's a little known fact that most of the muses share a condo in Foggy Bottom and spend their free time punctuating political commentary. Look for them to land a panel show on MSNBC next year.

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Don't roll up on Nancy Pelosi with some eternal flame of the musket nonsense, y'all. She will let the place out with a fierceness; she will put a chill in the marrow of your bones and then throw on a fabulous coat and go about her day. She's not the one. Nancy Pelosi was like, "yes, you went gaga over me clapping, but I also clapback."

R. Eric Thomas R Eric Thomas is a Senior Staff Writer at ELLE.com, home of his daily humor column "Eric Reads the News," which skewers politics, pop culture, celebrity shade, and schadenfreude.

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