Trump Offers Pelosi $130,000 to Keep Quiet

By Andy Borowitz, The New Yorker

18 January 19

The article below is satire. Andy Borowitz is an American comedian and New York Times-bestselling author who satirizes the news for his column, "The Borowitz Report."

n an indication that he has reached his breaking point with the Speaker of the House, Donald J. Trump is offering a hundred and thirty thousand dollars to keep Nancy Pelosi quiet, White House aides confirmed on Thursday.

According to those aides, Trump floated the idea of a six-figure payment to silence Pelosi during a closed-door meeting on Wednesday night, in which he asserted that he had done “a million of these deals.”

Trump’s effort to mute Pelosi faces a number of obstacles, however, including the fact that the person who has crafted such agreements for Trump in the past, Michael Cohen, is not available to perform such a service now.

Additionally, any agreement to silence Pelosi could face constitutional hurdles, since one of Pelosi’s principal duties as Speaker is to speak.

At the Capitol, Pelosi said that she would reject Trump’s proposed payment and added that she would offer him no money whatsoever to prevent him from delivering this year’s State of the Union address.

“I am asking for an hour of silence from Donald Trump, and you can’t put a price tag on that,” she said.