Pelosi: “Democrats will definitely win the House of Representatives in 2026”
Representative Nancy Pelosi said Zoran Mamdani is not the face of the new Democratic Party. There’s no one yet
Nancy Pelosi has no regrets, but she finds herself preparing to return to California while President Donald Trump remains in power in Washington.
And we have yet to have a female president.
“I always thought a woman would be president of the United States, long before a woman became speaker of the House,” Pelosi told USA TODAY in an exclusive interview after announcing her retirement after nearly 40 years in Congress. The men in charge – she called them “poor babies” – were not at all welcoming when she tried to join their ranks.
“It’s not a glass ceiling, it’s a marble ceiling,” she recalled. “I certainly thought the American people were far ahead of Congress in terms of acceptance and enthusiasm for a woman to be president of the United States.”
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But since she was elected as the first woman to chair the House nearly 20 years ago, two other women nominated for president, Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Kamala Harris in 2024, have both lost to Trump. In fact, Ms. Pelosi set aside tentative plans to retire at that point in the wake of her unexpected victory over Ms. Clinton.
All of this has dampened Pelosi’s optimism about meeting with a woman in the Oval Office, or at least her plans.
“Maybe not in my lifetime, but there will be women in the next generation,” she said.
Was former first lady Michelle Obama right last month when she said America wasn’t ready for that idea?
“I don’t know,” Pelosi mused, before admitting, “I respect what she said and I’ve seen the evidence from both campaigns.” Even though Clinton led the popular vote, winning the electoral college proved to be a “tall order.”
Breaking with Biden after decades of friendship
Democrats nominated Harris for president after President Joe Biden withdrew just 107 days before the election, citing concerns about his age and mental acuity. Pelosi played a key role in the decision, meeting with Biden and citing polls that cast doubt on the belief that Biden could win in November.
He heeded her advice, but despite decades of political friendship, the two never spoke again.
“It’s unfortunate because I love and respect him, but I respect his decision in that respect,” Pelosi said. She added: “He gave me some nice words when I announced my future plans. I’m grateful to him.”
In a written statement, Biden described Pelosi as “the best Speaker of the House in American history.”
Meanwhile, President Trump told reporters that she was an “evil woman” who “has done so much for our country by retiring.”
Ultimately, Pelosi said she had made the decision to retire from Congress after serving 20 terms. Article 20 − It wasn’t difficult to reach.
“The time has come,” she said in a Dec. 11 interview. “I mean, I’ve been ready for a while.” She kept her decision a secret until she boldly revealed it in a video last month, but for a while she “thought I’d probably never run again.”
There’s a reason she was silent, she added. “You can’t make yourself a lame duck,” as if to state the most obvious thing in the world.
Unless you’re Nancy D’Alesandro Pelosi, the daughter of three-term mayor of Baltimore, the most powerful woman in U.S. history. She negotiated the passage of historic legislation with Democratic Presidents Barack Obama and Biden, was a Republican adversary, a sworn enemy to President George W. Bush on the Iraq war, and to President Trump on, well, everything.
But if Democrats regain the House majority in next year’s midterm elections, which Pelosi says is a certainty given the president’s low approval ratings, she doesn’t think impeaching Trump should be on the table. She led two impeachments against him during his first presidential term.
“No,” she said. “It’s not a coincidence that we’re going to do it. No, there’s got to be a reason. There’s got to be a reason.”
Rather, what Congressional Democrats need to do in the remaining two years of President Trump’s second term is to hold the course and clear a path to reclaiming the White House in 2028.
She said of President Trump, “We may not be able to get his signature on things, but we can slow down the terror he is inflicting on the country.”
My steps are slow and the scenery isn’t as bright.
She is currently 85 years old. “I’m old!” she exclaimed at one point, a little surprised.
Her gait is a little uncertain these days, but her posture during our hour-long conversation was as straight as it was when she arrived in town in 1987. Wearing a fire-engine red pantsuit and distinctive stiletto heels, he returned after recovering from a fall and hip replacement surgery a year ago.
“Speaker Emeritus,” the honorific title she invented for her special position, lacks the power and privilege that comes with being speaker and minority leader of the Democratic Party. She led the party in various positions for 20 years from 2003 to 2023.
Let’s think about it. The Speaker’s Office, just off the House floor, offers one of the best views in Washington over the National Mall.
Currently, her quarters in the Longworth House Office Building as the representative for California’s 11th District have a wall view of the Rayburn House Office Building next door.
The first thing visitors see is a framed poster given to her by then-Massachusetts Sen. Edward Kennedy, showing a smiling Pelosi surrounded by photos of the 51 men who spoke before her on the House floor.
In the hallway outside, a large bronze plaque honors the law enforcement officers who protected the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, when rioters attacked the electoral vote counting ceremony that confirmed Biden’s victory over Trump. “Their heroic deeds will never be forgotten,” it read.
Pelosi’s disdain for Trump, displayed publicly after the 2020 State of the Union address when she stood behind Trump and shredded his speech, has yet to cool down. She calls his administration “corrupt, incoherent, chaotic, and cruel” and his political priorities “sick.”
She said her proudest accomplishment was the passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010, and her biggest disappointment was the lack of gun control measures to curb school shootings.
“Not as fast as an adjective.”
She acknowledges that her days of wielding power are over.
“I don’t have any powers right now, and I will have even less power when I’m not in Congress,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t have influence.” She said she will continue to work on the issues she cares about most and will be ready to offer “advice if people want it.”
She has not ruled out speculation that she is likely to support Connie Chung, a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and a crowded candidate to replace Pelosi in Congress. “I’m not going to do anything right now,” she replied. The state Democratic convention is in February, but “we’ll see how it goes.”
Pelosi expressed confidence that her daughter Christine will win the California Senate seat in November and that Democrats will regain the House majority. “Hakim (Jeffries Democratic Leader) only needs three seats to become chairman,” she said. “I want about 30 more.”
But her future challenges sound more personal than political. Her husband, Paul, is “in good spirits” but is still dealing with the trauma of a brutal assault in their San Francisco home by a hammer-wielding assailant who is currently serving a life sentence. “I feel terrible because they were looking for me. They got him,” she said. “He’s paying the price physically, but our children are paying it in trauma.”
She also wants to be more supportive of her friends who are going through their “ups and downs.”
People say, “Okay, what are we going to do next?” she said indignantly. “So why don’t you think about this and that? And I said, ‘I don’t need to do anything. I’m old and I don’t need to do anything else.’
What adjective will she carve on her tombstone years from now?
“Not that fast, adjectively,” she answered crisply.
But she laid flowers on the graves of her friends and predecessors, Phil and Sarah Burton, on Veterans Day and said she was impressed by the message they chose. “His life was service and his love was people,” his adjectives read. Her: “She cared.”
USA TODAY Washington Bureau Chief Susan Page is the author of “Madam Speaker: Nancy Pelosi and the Lessons of Power.”
