Nancy Pelosi Staffer Called Out For ‘Abuse’ After Insulting Reporter’s Accurate Story On House Speaker’s Future

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Nancy Pelosi’s deputy chief of staff seems to have egg on his face after lashing out at a reporter’s story about the House speaker’s future, which turned out to be accurate.

On Thursday, Pelosi announced that she would remain in Congress as a representative from California, but she would not seek re-election to be the leader of the Democratic caucus. Pelosi’s political future was the subject of public speculation before her speech on the House floor, but this outcome was reported in advance by Puck’s Tara Palmeri.

Hours before Pelosi’s speech, Palmeri released a story saying, “Pelosi will announce that she plans to stay in Congress as a backbencher, roaming the halls in a sort of emeritus role and helping to guide Democrats through their turn in the minority.” This was preceded by Palmeri’s earlier reporting that Hakeem Jeffries is likely to be chosen as the next Democratic House leader.

Palmeri’s story on the leadership shift included a quote from Pelosi’s deputy chief of staff, Drew Hammill, who flatly denied that the House speaker had made a definite choice.

“Nothing in this reporting is correct,” said Hammill. “As the Speaker just stated yesterday on national TV, she will make a decision once all the votes have been counted. She’s not even thinking about her future at this moment.”

Beyond the quote in Palmeri’s story, Hammill got on Twitter in the last few days to attack her reporting and say she “has zero sourcing in Pelosi world but is constantly trying to break news.” This diatribe — which was described as “abuse” by Palmeri’s colleague Julia Ioffe — continued with “I don’t know who reads Puck, let alone pays for it, but I wanted to get ahead of Tara Palmeri’s latest typo-ridden Pelosi scoop to let everyone know that it’s complete trash just like the last ones. That’s all.”

Palmeri took on the verbal abuse with her stoic observation that she “touched a nerve.”

The animosity resumed on Thursday when Hammill went after Palmeri by referring to reports that Pelosi had two speeches prepared to reflect whichever decision she would make.

“Anybody who tells you they know what she will do is a liar,” Hammill said.

This drew Palmeri’s retort that “You’re right Drew, her staff doesn’t know.” His response: “And you don’t either.”

Now that Pelosi’s decision has been publicly announced, Palmeri’s report has been proven accurate. Thus, the Puck writer has been retweeting several political observers who’ve been calling Hammill out for his unwarranted, hostile conduct toward her.