U.S. President Donald Trump’s simmering feud with Democratic congresswoman Nancy Pelosi flared up in remarkable fashion during his State of the Union address as each politician snubbed the other while the American public watched on.

The U.S. president went first, declining to shake the outstretched hand of Pelosi, the Democratic House speaker who launched the impeachment drive against him, as he arrived at the podium to deliver his speech.

Pelosi got her revenge around 75 minutes later, when as Trump stood receiving applause in the room after his finale she picked up a copy of his address and ripped it in two, Telegraph says.

The moments, clipped up and circulating on social media within minutes, undercut Trump’s attempt to ignore impeachment, which comes to a head with a vote on Wednesday, and lay out his accomplishments in office.

Not one of the 5,917 words in the text of Trump’s speech circulated by the White House was “impeachment”, an issue that has hung over his presidency for almost five months. He is expected to be acquitted on Wednesday.

The pair have repeatedly clashed since the Democrats reclaimed the majority in the House in November 2018, making Pelosi the House speaker.

Since then the pair have had a bruising stand-off over border wall funding that shutdown the government, had tense meetings that have resulted in one or the other side storming out and - most recently - squared off over impeachment.