Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said casting Republicans as “weird” is “too generous” of an attack.
“I think it’s too generous. I think they’re much worse than weird,” she told MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell on Thursday night.
“But that’s not what people want to hear,” she continued. “They’d rather hear something like that.”
Pelosi credited Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) for coining the insult. Over the last week, Democrats have latched on to the term to describe their Republican opponents and their policies.
The term was first floated by Walz while serving as a surrogate for Vice President Harris on news programs.
“These are weird people on the other side. They want to take books away. They want to be in your exam room,” he said in a July TV interview.
While criticizing the "weird" attack as too gentle, Pelosi otherwise lauded Walz for his ability to speak to a broad swath of the electorate. She used the "weird" attack as the example, noting how it took off.
“It went viral and that’s what kind of took him into the younger world,” Pelosi said. “It introduced him in a way that was very positive.”
Clips of Walz calling Republicans “weird” catapulted him into virtual starhood, raising his recognizability and positioning him as a strong candidate for the vice presidency.
Pundits have credited Walz’s broad base appeal in part for his elevation onto the Democratic ticket — balancing a progressive portfolio with appeal in Minnesota’s rural communities.
Republicans have aggressively retaliated against Walz amid his rise within the Democratic Party and for his “weird” attack, with the Trump campaign calling him a “West Coast wannabe.”
“To characterize him as left is so unreal,” Pelosi said Tuesday on "Morning Joe." "He’s right down the middle, he’s a heartland-of-America Democrat.”
