(Washington) Nancy Pelosi, a major figure in American politics, announced Thursday to renounce the post of leader of the Democrats in the future House of Representatives, where the Republicans obtained the majority.
“I will not run for the Democratic leadership of the next Congress,” said the current Speaker of the House, 82, during a speech in the hemicycle where she said she wanted to make way for “a new generation “.
President Joe Biden immediately paid tribute to her, hailing her as a “staunch defender of democracy”.
To applause, she recalled the memories of her 35 years in the Chamber, which she saw evolve to be “more representative of our beautiful nation”.
Nancy Pelosi, the first woman to occupy the lower house roost, also spoke about darker times, like the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
“American democracy is majestic, but it is fragile,” she warned.
Nancy Pelosi maintained the suspense over her withdrawal until the end, taking home two different versions of her speech. She will continue to sit in the House, as a simple elected from California.
“Nancy Pelosi will be remembered as one of the most accomplished parliamentarians in American history – pushing boundaries, opening up opportunities and working to serve Americans,” former Democratic President Barack Obama tweeted.
“Thank you for everything you have done for the United States,” greeted Hakeem Jeffries, elected from New York and tipped to succeed him as head of the Democrats in the House.
The House greeted the end of his speech with a long ovation, the Democrats standing, many Republicans absent. “The Pelosi era is coming to an end. Good riddance ! tweeted Colorado Trumpist Lauren Boebert.
Offensive
The third figure in the American state, she is known for her role as the first opponent of Donald Trump, whom she fiercely fought when he occupied the White House.
A tactician gifted with an unparalleled political flair, she has often made rain and shine on Capitol Hill where she was elected “speaker” in 2007.
In recent months, it is his commitment to Taiwan that has caused a lot of talk: his visit this summer to the island claimed by the Chinese authorities had angered Beijing.
At the end of October, her husband Paul was attacked in the middle of the night at their home in California by a man armed with a hammer. He was actually looking for Nancy Pelosi, whom he accused of lying and to whom he intended to “break the kneecaps”.
The drama marked the Democrat, who said she was “traumatized”.
At the beginning of her speech, she also had a word for her husband, “beloved partner” and “support”.
Just before the Nov. 8 election, she said the attack would influence her decision whether or not to retire if the Democrats lost their majority in the House of Representatives.
This is what happened on Wednesday evening, after more than a week of a suspense count as the complex American electoral system knows how to create the conditions.
In the end, the Republicans grabbed a majority of at least 218 seats which, although very narrow, will give them blocking power over Joe Biden’s policy until 2024.
Split
The Congress is therefore divided, the Democrats having managed to retain control of the Senate.
Even with a slim majority in the House, Republicans will have substantial inspection power, which they have promised to use for a host of investigations into Joe Biden’s handling of the pandemic or the withdrawal of Afghanistan.
They did not waste a second to implement it.
On Thursday morning, conservatives in the lower house announced plans to investigate “national security” risks posed by Joe Biden’s family’s overseas business dealings.
Deprived of a Congress which had been entirely its own for two years, the party of the Democratic president will no longer be able to vote on major projects. But neither does the other side.
The future of Republican projects — unraveling certain education reforms, questioning aid to Ukraine, legislating abortion at the federal level, etc. — thus appears more than uncertain.
PHOTO ALEX BRANDON, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Nancy Pelosi tears up Donald Trump’s speech to Congress in Washington, February 4, 2020.
The Lady of the Capitol
With a spectacular gesture, Nancy Pelosi tears up the speech that Donald Trump has just delivered to Congress: the image has marked the spirits and perfectly sums up the striking style of the stainless president of the head of the House of Representatives.
Third figure of the American state after the president and the vice-president, this fine 82-year-old tactician has occupied the perch, intermittently, since 2007.
She will have to give up the mallet in January, her Democratic Party having narrowly lost control of the lower house in the midterm elections. The California elected official announced Thursday that she would also leave the head of the Democratic group to “younger generations”.
A central and sometimes divisive figure in the American political class, Nancy Pelosi has been walking the Capitol since 1987, where she has seen no less than seven American presidents.
Accustomed to struggles between parties, but also internal, it is largely credited with the passage of Barack Obama’s health reform and Joe Biden’s gigantic investment plans.
But more than anything, it was in her role as the first opponent of Donald Trump, whose indictment she validated twice, that the “Speaker” stood out.
Like when, on February 7, 2018, this woman with boundless energy proclaimed a river speech in the hemicycle, right on her heels for more than eight hours, to demand an immigration reform protecting young undocumented people.
Then in February 2020, during the president’s annual address to parliamentarians, Nancy Pelosi, seated behind him, listens with a pinched, often disapproving air.
No sooner had he finished than she ostensibly tore up the copy of his remarks under the gaze of the dumbfounded assembly. She will then explain that she wanted to destroy a “collection of untruths”.
” Punches “
Images, recently revealed, confirmed his pugnacity even in the worst moments.
They date back to January 6, 2021, when his team informed him of Donald Trump’s intention to mingle with the crowd about to attack Congress, a project to which the 45e president will eventually give up.
“If he comes, I’m going to fire him with my fists, I’ve been waiting for this for a long time,” she says bluntly. “I’m going to fire him with my fists, I’ll go to prison, and I’ll be happy,” she insists, gritting her teeth.
Nancy Pelosi’s relentless opposition to the stormy Republican, her political positions and her outspokenness have sometimes made her a target.
That day, while she is holed up in a secret location, supporters of Donald Trump will storm into her office shouting “where are you Nancy? “.
The same cry uttered by a man, who broke into her home in San Francisco at the end of October, attacking her husband with a hammer.
This aggression marked her deeply. “It made me realize the fear” felt by electoral agents and some elected officials, she explained. “But we have to be brave,” she hastened to add.
Aboveground
Donald Trump, who nicknamed her “Crazy Nancy”, depicts her as a caricature of the political backwater, which he claims to be fighting.
Other conservatives denounce the “arrogance” and the above-ground standard of living of this wife of a millionaire businessman.
Mother of five children, Nancy D’Alesandro was born on March 26, 1940 in Baltimore into an Italian-American Catholic family. His father and his brother were mayors of this large industrial city in the east of the country.
A graduate of Trinity College in Washington, she then moved to San Francisco with her husband Paul Pelosi.
She climbed the steps of the Democratic Party and won her first election to the House at the age of 47. In 2003, she took the lead of the Democratic minority, before occupying the perch from 2007 to 2010.
The one who has the image of a moderate in her progressive stronghold of San Francisco takes over this post in 2019 by crushing without making a wave the slingshot in the restless Democratic left wing.
Since then, his authority has never been questioned, at least publicly.
Perhaps because “nobody has ever won betting against Nancy Pelosi,” according to comments made by her daughter Alexandra, on CNN in 2019. “She is the type to rip your head off without you realizing it. same account that you bleed”.