My admiration for Pelosi comes from her being one of the last of the incredibly great, old school pols who got things done. Highway projects, Social Security, Medicare, et al...
These pols from both major parties, excepting the strict ideologues stuck on people being born to serve principles, rather than principles being human constructs created to guide human beings,
were what built America's greatness.
‘Let him stew in his own juice,’ Pelosi advises ahead of Trump’s speech
Paul Kane
Nancy Pelosi still recalls the precise nature of how she ripped Donald Trump’s speech into shreds during his last State of the Union address.
Then the House speaker, she was sitting directly behind the president the night of Feb. 4, 2020. She put a slight tear on each page when the San Francisco Democrat heard something she considered false.
“Then, when I saw that every page was a lie, I had to tear it up,” Pelosi recalled. The stiff paper required “a few” rips instead of “one smooth” motion to obliterate it, she added. “Parchment is very hard to tear.”
Some five years later, Pelosi will attend Tuesday’s joint session of Congress when Trump returns to the House chamber for the first time since that raucous speech. That one began with the president refusing to shake her hand and ended with her waving the shredded speech to her family and supporters in the gallery above.
Now a rank-and-file lawmaker, Pelosi retains a great degree of clout inside the Democratic caucus. Younger lawmakers continue to seek her counsel, with recent discussions including warnings to not turn themselves into part of the story during Tuesday’s speech and urging them to narrow their party’s message in next year’s midterm elections.
“Any demonstration of disagreement, whether it’s visual or whatever, just let him stew in his own juice. Don’t be any grist for the mill to say this was inappropriate,” Pelosi said Thursday morning.
Democrats have struggled in these opening weeks of Trump’s term to unify around a rebuttal to his controversial actions. Pelosi wants Democrats to focus on the recent vote that set a budget outline that can only be met with steep cuts to popular health-care entitlements. It was supported by 217 of 218 House Republicans and not a single Democrat. In the Senate, a few Republicans remain leery of supporting some of the House’s more extreme proposals.
“I’m going there to hear what he has to say about Medicaid, about taking medical care away from more children, middle-income seniors who need long-term health care, and people with disabilities,” she said of Trump’s upcoming speech.
After 20 years leading the caucus, Pelosi has largely ceded the spotlight to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York) and his younger leadership team. She relishes her role as someone who still raises big money for Democrats but doesn’t have to answer for every lawmaker’s concern.
She sees similarities today to the two most recent times Democrats were completely locked out of power: in 2005 after George W. Bush’s reelection coincided with GOP wins of the House and Senate, and in 2017 after Trump’s first victory.
Early moves by Jeffries mirror what Democrats did in those years. In 2005, Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nevada) came up with a narrow campaign message (“Six for ’06”) that started with a simple defense against Bush’s attempt to privatize Social Security.
Every time she was asked about the Democratic alternative to Bush’s plan, Pelosi delivered a two-word response: Social Security.
Democrats dug in and defended the program, leading to Bush’s retreat. They focused on a few key issues, such as ethics reform and winding down the Iraq War, and drove them home the final year before winning more than 30 seats in the House and six in the Senate, claiming both majorities.
“You got a mountain of rocks,” Pelosi said, metaphorically referring to all the potential issues in an election. “What are the three or four? You’re going right for the jugular.”
Early life and education
Nancy Pelosi was born in Baltimore, Maryland, to an Italian-American family. She was the only daughter and the youngest of six children of Annunciata M. "Nancy" D'Alesandro (née Lombardi)[4] and Thomas D'Alesandro Jr.[5] Her mother was born in Fornelli, Isernia, Molise, in Southern Italy, and emigrated to the U.S. in 1912;[6] her father traced his Italian ancestry to Genoa, Venice and Abruzzo.[5] When Pelosi was born, her father was a Democratic congressman from Maryland. He became Baltimore mayor seven years later.[7][5][8] Pelosi's mother was also active in politics, organizing Democratic women and teaching her daughter political skills.[9] Pelosi's brother, Thomas D'Alesandro III, also a Democrat, was elected Baltimore City Council president and later served as mayor from 1967 to 1971.[7]
Pelosi helped her father at his campaign events, and she attended President John F. Kennedy's inaugural address in January 1961.[5]
In 1958, Pelosi graduated from the Institute of Notre Dame, an all-girls Catholic high school in Baltimore. In 1962, she graduated from Trinity College (now Trinity Washington University) in Washington, D.C., with a Bachelor of Arts in political science.[10] Pelosi interned for Senator Daniel Brewster (D-Maryland) in the 1960s alongside future House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer.
God Bless Nancy Pelosi and God Bless America!
