(Washington) Elected Democrat Nancy Pelosi, emblematic figure of the American political scene of the last four decades and first woman to lead the House of Representatives, announced Thursday that she would retire in January 2027, at the end of her current mandate.
“I really enjoyed bringing your voice to Congress,” the 85-year-old elected official said on social media in a video dedicated to the residents of San Francisco, whom she represented since 1987.
During Donald Trump’s first term (2017-2021), the Californian established herself among the Republican’s main opponents, initially as leader of the minority in the House, then, from 2019, as “speaker”, when the Democrats regained the majority there.
In this often shadowy role, which she had already occupied from 2007 to 2011, Nancy Pelosi had taken a leading place.
Accustomed to struggles between parties, but also internal ones, this fine tactician is largely credited with the passage of Barack Obama’s health reform in 2010 and Joe Biden’s gigantic investment plans in 2021.
At the time of Donald Trump’s first visit to the White House, she was at the origin of one of the emblematic images of these four years: during the president’s annual speech to parliamentarians in 2020, Nancy Pelosi, seated behind him, listens to Donald Trump with a pinched, often disapproving air.
Barely had he finished when she ostensibly tore up the copy of his remarks under the gaze of the stunned assembly. She will then explain that she wanted to destroy a “collection of untruths”.
PHOTO JOSHUA ROBERTS, REUTERS ARCHIVES
Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi tears up U.S. President Donald Trump’s speech after his State of the Union address in Washington, February 4, 2020.
One of the high points of his mandate comes almost a year later, on January 6, 2021, the day of the assault on the Capitol by supporters of the Republican billionaire.
When Nancy Pelosi’s team informed her of Donald Trump’s intention to join the crowd about to attack Congress, a project to which the 45e president finally gives up, she exclaims bluntly: “If he comes, I will kick him out, I have been waiting for this for a long time”.
“I’ll kick him out, I’ll go to jail, and I’ll be happy,” she insists, gritting her teeth.
Donald Trump, who often nicknamed her “Crazy Nancy”, portrayed her as a caricature of the political backwater he claims to fight.
In January 2022, she had to leave the perch when the Republicans regained the majority in the House. Nancy Pelosi had also announced that she would give up any leadership position within the minority.
She will leave Congress for good in a little over a year, after forty years of walking the corridors of the Capitol.
