House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) recoiled at a question Thursday about President Trump's first overseas trip, suggesting she was being baited into criticizing him and then going on a tangent wondering why Trump chose to visit Saudi Arabia first.
The reporter asked for her "impressions" of Trump's visit, which has also included stops in Israel, the West Bank, Italy and Belgium, and whether she thought it had been "successful."
Pelosi appeared bothered by the query, saying she would not criticize Trump while he was abroad.
"Here's the thing," she said. "I was in four countries, five countries during the break, and during that time, if anybody said anything to me ... they would bring up President Trump ... I said, you know what? That's not why we're here ... We don't go overseas and criticize our president, so if that's what you came to this meeting to do, that's not what we are here to do."
She added there would be some "things to say" later about his visit, such as his "unusual decision" to visit Saudi Arabia first. She appeared to make a joke that it wasn't "alphabetical."
"Saudi Arabia?" she asked. "It wasn't even alphabetical."
She remarked the previous five U.S. presidents visited either Canada or Mexico in their first overseas visit.
"What was the decision-making process to go to Saudi Arabia first?" she asked. "That's a question that I have, and what policy flows from that? There are further questions I'll have when the president returns."
In Saudi Arabia, Trump delivered an address on terrorism to Muslim leaders that called on them to oust violent extremists from their midsts and defined the war against terrorism as a battle between good and evil.