Presumptive House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has a message for the press: Take your obsession with Trump-related allegations down a notch. Or five.

And to think: Just two days earlier national newsrooms, including CNN and MSNBC, were hailing the California Democrat as a conquering #Resistance hero. Is there anything more tragic than unrequited love?

Pelosi’s advice to the press Thursday came after CNN’s chief White House correspondent asked the California congresswoman about “ Trump being implicated in crimes.”

“I wish that the press would spend a lot more time on what we need to do here to meet the needs of the American people instead of morning, noon, and night allegations against the president,” Pelosi told CNN’s Manu Raju the day after she all but assured she would be the next House speaker. “The Justice Department, the Mueller investigation, they’ll work their will but there are other things going on that are newsworthy.”

She added, “I think you’d have more viewers and readers if you address concerns that people have rather than just this ongoing, ongoing coverage of what’s current with the president from one day to the next.”

A somewhat hurt and confused-sounding Raju captured it all later on Twitter, writing that the California congresswoman sounded a lot like a critic of the press.

“I asked Pelosi at presser about Trump being implicated in crimes,” he wrote, adding later that “she then turned into media critic.”

His next question to her was simple: What about Trump’s tax returns?

Pelosi responded, “I think that’s the Ways and Means Committee’s decision that they have to make. I think they see a path in that direction … the question is ... where do we go from there?"

As to why the congresswoman would want to discourage the press from obsessing over Trump’s alleged misdeeds, Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey has some thoughts:



It could just be that Pelosi wants the focus to be positive for the start of the next Congress rather than on what Democrats will start doing with subpoena power, but there’s no way that Democratic discussions on farm bills will overshadow a president, especially Trump. Perhaps Pelosi’s worried about setting expectations too high for impeachment and wants to dial down the pressure. If that’s the case, then perhaps impeachment isn’t in the cards after all, at least not unless Robert Mueller finds more than what has emerged publicly.



That all seems possible. It is also possible that it's much simpler than that. At this point in the game — with the House speakership locked up — perhaps Pelosi has reached her breaking point with answering repeated questions about impeachment. She certainly didn’t appreciate those questions prior to the November midterm elections, and I can’t imagine she has warmed to them now having captured the House and the speaker’s gavel.

But the thing that's really amusing to me in all of this is the fact that prior to her remarks Thursday, MSNBC and CNN anchors were tripping over themselves earlier this week declaring her a hero and a “boss.” Now, two days after Pelosi's White House meeting with President Trump and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., here she is telling the same people who treated her like a pop culture icon to get their respective houses in order.