ABC News correspondent Rachel Scott was pressed about her controversial exchange with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that went viral last week during a Tuesday appearance on “The View.”
“I think people need to understand that one of the best parts of American democracy is freedom of the press and there's no better representation of that than on Capitol Hill,” Scott said, responding to co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin.
“My job is to always be respectful, first and foremost, but always ask tough questions, and lawmakers may not always like those questions. They don't have to answer them, but I'll keep asking them anyway,” the journalist added.
Last week, Scott asked Pelosi about President Biden's continued presence in the White House race in a video that quickly went viral after Pelosi yelled at Scott for his question, at one point saying, “Am I speaking English to you?”
'THE VIEW' CO-HOSTS CALL FOR GUN CONTROL AFTER TRUMP ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT
ABC News' Rachel Scott joins the co-hosts of “The View” on Tuesday, July 16, 2024. (Screenshot/ABC)
“The View” co-host Joy Behar responded to Scott, arguing that Pelosi answered her question.
“She said she thinks President Biden can win the election… although she said she didn't want to take questions in the hallway. After I asked her that question, she answered, which led to a follow-up question, and then you saw what happened from there,” Scott said.
“I'm not going to have any conversations with you or anybody else about what I've said to the president, with all due respect,” Pelsoi told Scott during the tense exchange. “I'm not going to make any comments today, in the hallway, about the fate of our nation, OK?”
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Scott also recounted his experience reporting on Trump's rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday, where the former president survived an assassination attempt.
“It's something I'm still processing now, 72 hours later,” Scott said. “All of a sudden, you hear these popping sounds, pop, pop, pop, pop. It's almost like you think it's a firecracker or something and then everyone in the crowd started screaming, they started yelling, 'shots fired, get on the ground, get on the ground.' I encouraged my CBS colleague who was next to me to get on the ground. My security pulled me off the press box and that's when we took cover.”
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“I had an incredible colleague at NBC, Jake Traylor, who protected me in those moments,” Scott continued. “There's so much going on in your head, right? Maybe it was just a couple of seconds, but I felt like time slowed down a lot and you started playing this game of 'what if…' what if there was a gunman on the loose?”
