Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the attack on her husband, Paul, by an intruder in their family home made her think about staying on as the House Democratic leader because she “couldn’t give them that satisfaction” of intimidating her out of politics.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the attack on her husband, Paul, by an intruder in their family home made her think about staying on as the House Democratic leader because she “couldn’t give them that satisfaction” of intimidating her out of politics.
But Pelosi said Thursday she was ready to step aside and felt “balanced” about her decision to make way for a new generation of leaders.
She’s staying as the congresswoman of San Francisco but has no plans to endorse a successor or meddle with the new leaders.
“I have no intention of being the mother-in-law in the kitchen saying, ‘My son doesn’t like the stuffing that way,’” Pelosi said in a wide ranging interview with reporters at the Capitol.
“They will have their vision, they will have their plan.”
As for the future direction of the House Democrats, she said: “That’s up to them, I want it to be whatever they want it to be.”
Pelosi, who is 82, spoke to reporters in the “The Board of Education” Room, a historic space once frequented after hours only by the men in Congress, after she announced her decision to step down after 20 years as the party leader. Her action followed the midterm elections t hat gave Republicans control of the House.
First elected in 1987, when there were just 12 Democratic women in Congress, Pelosi said she chose to wear white to deliver her speech on the House floor Thursday in a nod to the suffragettes — noting a painting of the women with the 19th Amendment she had installed in the gilded meeting room alongside one of San Francisco’s Golden Gate bridge.
Digging into a package of cookies — chocolate chip, of course — the speaker would not say exactly when she made her decision to step aside.
