Return to power and legacy

‘In a class by herself’: Pelosi has roared back in the Trump era

The speaker's return to power and legacy will be linked forever to her battles with the norm-busting president.

By HEATHER CAYGLE, JOHN BRESNAHAN and SARAH FERRIS

Speaker Nancy Pelosi stood in front of her members on Tuesday morning and gestured to a bright red poppy pinned to her coat.

Pelosi received the memorial pin while attending the 75th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge in Belgium over the weekend. Some of the few surviving veterans of that epic fight — the bloodiest for Americans during World War II — had pulled her aside to say Democrats were doing the right thing by impeaching President Donald Trump.

“As so many of those veterans just kept saying, ‘Keep on going,’” Pelosi recounted in the closed-door meeting. “‘Get this done.’”

Pelosi also praised House Democrats for their own stance on impeachment, saying they were forced to do so by Trump’s misconduct.

“As you know, this was not an issue that was whipped, when it comes to impeachment,” Pelosi added. “It was about the moral courage of people making their own decision about honoring their own oath of office when the president isn’t honoring his.”

Pelosi’s comments, described by several Democrats in the room, capture her mood as the House prepares to vote to impeach the president, with near unity in her caucus. It will be only the third time in history the House has voted for impeachment.

This vote comes at a critical moment for Pelosi, who just a year ago was clawing her way back to the speakership in the face of opposition from some within her own party. Several Democratic candidates declared they wouldn’t support her in the run up to the election and some rank-and-file members openly questioned whether she would be up to the job.

Through a mix of dealmaking and arm twisting, Pelosi won over many of her most vocal critics and triumphantly returned to the speaker’s chair in January. Almost immediately, Pelosi was buffeted by the question of impeaching Trump, which sharply divided the party’s progressives and centrists, and which she feared could threaten her hard-won majority.

But at age 79 and in her 17th term in the House, Pelosi has never been better, according to interviews with nearly two dozen Democrats. Her command of legislation, her control over her caucus, her ability to confront a historically hostile president and GOP-run Senate on equal terms are unparalleled. She’s the one person in Washington who can beat Trump at his own game, though she never wanted to play it.

Pelosi broke the marble ceiling a decade ago as the first female speaker of the House. And she was central to the legislative achievements of Barack Obama’s presidency, including his signature health care law, the Affordable Care Act.

Now, though, nearly every memorable part of Pelosi’s return to power has been inextricably bound to the rise of her chief antagonist, Trump.

The finger-wagging in the Cabinet room. The sunglasses Pelosi cooly donned as she strode out of the White House. The sarcastic clapback at the State of the Union. Pelosi’s most viral moments — establishing her as an icon of the new left, more than three decades into her congressional career — nearly all come in the context of fighting back against Trump.

It’s that very struggle against Trump, culminating in his impeachment on Wednesday, that will define Part 2 of Pelosi’s career.

“We’re not focusing on ousting Trump. We’re focused on fulfilling our responsibilities under the U.S. Constitution. A lot of that is legislative, but sometimes it’s oversight,” said House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.), a close friend of the speaker.

As for Pelosi, Clyburn was adamant: “She was good the first time around. She’s been great this time.”

From the first weeks of his presidency, Pelosi has been one of Trump’s most forceful opponents. In their very first meeting, the then-House minority leader was the only person in a roomful of congressional leaders to confront Trump when he inaccurately claimed widespread voting fraud in the 2016 election.

Pelosi has also fought against Trump on his own turf, hitting back on Twitter, trolling him in made-for-TV moments, deriding him as “an insecure imposter” and even threatening to cancel his State of the Union address in the middle of an ugly government shutdown.

“[Pelosi] has always prided herself in being measured. And these few incidents where you would argue she isn’t measured but became powerful moments in establishing her in an iconic way, and showing the power that she has,” said Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.), adding that Pelosi’s most viral moments were “probably a surprise even to her.”

For most of his time in office, Trump has largely decided not to punch back. Until recently, Trump was willing to wage personal attacks against nearly every political rival, from Chuck Schumer to Adam Schiff to Joe Biden, but not Pelosi.

That unstated detente has come to an abrupt end as the House has escalated its impeachment push. Trump went after Pelosi for what he called an “unhinged meltdown,” later calling her “Nervous Nancy.” This week, Trump tweeted bizarre personal insults about the speaker’s teeth and followed up on Tuesday with a scathing six-page letter to Pelosi that accused her of lying for repeatedly saying she prays for him.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (D-Calif.) said Pelosi will be remembered more for impeaching Trump than anything else she’s done in her long political career.

“She’s tried to claim herself as the ‘master legislator,’ but now she’s going to be known as the 'master impeacher' because that’s all she’s been able to do. But she failed at that too,” McCarthy asserted.

Pelosi has been the public face of the Democrats’ impeachment probe, a position that she had been long reluctant to embrace until the Ukraine scandal broke open after a whistleblower accused Trump of pressuring Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate Biden, a potential 2020 competitor.

Once Pelosi decided to open the impeachment inquiry — announcing the probe at a podium flanked by American flags in her speaker’s suite in late September — she has meticulously managed the process. Everything from House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff’s (D-Calif.) opening statement at the first hearing to the order of Democrats speaking out on the floor on Wednesday has Pelosi’s imprimatur.

She’s even worked to control the mood of her caucus, with she and her top deputies instructing Democrats in a private meeting on Tuesday to refrain from any kind of celebratory cheers on the floor after the House votes to charge Trump with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

“Her dealing with impeachment is not a strain for her, it’s part of the job,” said Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.). “Her experience and her skill is allowing her to navigate these extraordinary crosscurrents, one of which is impeachment, but doing it in an even-handed and confident way.”

For some in the caucus’ left flank, Pelosi’s reluctance to embrace impeachment following former special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian electoral interference was a mistake. But they acknowledge that it was Pelosi’s eventual change of heart that led the House to this moment.

“Once it was clear that her leadership in guiding us through this process was going to be monumental, I think she stepped up,” said Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), adding that Pelosi needed to demonstrate “patience for everyone else to come along.”

Pelosi’s path to impeachment also drew some criticism from centrists in her caucus — most vocally from freshman Democrat Jeff Van Drew, who ultimately decided to leave the party over impeachment, though polling showed his political future as a Democrat was already at risk.

“I think her initial view is one that I was more in accord with, and I was actually proud of,” Van Drew said of Pelosi, just two days before reports surfaced that he would become a Republican after a personal plea from Trump.

For Pelosi, Trump’s impeachment isn’t what she thought her legacy would be. Obamacare, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, Wall Street reform, expanded health care for children, action on climate change, repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” increasing the minimum wage, billions of dollars in more money for veterans and medical research — Pelosi’s legislative record is long and impressive.

Pelosi has said publicly she planned to retire if Hillary Clinton had won in 2016, with Obamacare as her defining achievement. The speaker only stayed, she said, to protect the landmark health care law and to ensure there was a woman’s voice at the leadership table.

“I want to be remembered as part of the Affordable Care Act,” Pelosi said in a CNN town hall earlier this month when asked about how impeachment factors into her legacy.

“I would hope that the legacy would be one of respect, one of fairness, and one of honoring my oath of office to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States from all enemies, foreign and domestic, so help me God,” she added.

In an alternate universe, Pelosi’s ability to wrangle her caucus could have paired with Trump’s claims to be the “ultimate dealmaker” and a Republican willing to buck his party to secure his own personal wins.

But Trump has so far squandered the chance to secure his own legacy-defining wins that he vowed to pursue from the campaign trail. Infrastructure investments — typically considered a Democratic priority — went nowhere. Same with prescription drug negotiations. Trump hasn’t even been the one in the room when Pelosi and other congressional leaders hammer out spending deals.

Pelosi — who returned to power in the middle of a 35-day government shutdown — has managed to secure some of her caucus’ biggest wins in the same week that the House is moving to impeach Trump.

In the final weeks before impeachment, Pelosi muscled through the House a continent-spanning trade agreement, a landmark prescription drug pricing bill and a $1.4 trillion funding package.

Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio), who challenged Pelosi for party leader after Democrats failed to win back the House in 2016, now sings her praises.

“Nancy Pelosi is the absolute best politician that the Democratic Party has seen since Lyndon Johnson, in my opinion,” Ryan said.

When asked if he could have done what Pelosi did if he were Democratic leader, Ryan added: “Probably not. … She’s literally in a class by herself.”