Nancy Pelosi isn't given to regrets, but she now finds herself preparing to return to California while PresidentDonald Trumpremains in power in Washington.
And there still hasn't been a woman elected president.
"I always thought that a woman would be president of the United States long before a woman would be speaker of the House," Pelosi told USA TODAY in an exclusive interview afterannouncing her retirement, the end of nearly 40 years in Congress. The men who ran things − "poor babies," she called them − weren't exactly welcoming when she tried to join their ranks.
"It's not a glass ceiling, it's a marble ceiling," she recalled. "I thought certainly the American people are far ahead of the Congress in terms of their acceptance or their enthusiasm for a woman to be president of the United States."
Since she was elected the first female speaker nearly two decades ago, though, the two women nominated for president,Hillary Clintonin 2016 andKamala Harrisin 2024, have both been defeated, both by Trump. Indeed, his unexpected victory over Clinton prompted Pelosi to set aside her tentative plans to retire then.
All that has tempered Pelosi's optimism, or at least her timetable, for seeing a woman in the Oval Office.
"I think it's probably − maybe not in my lifetime, but within this next generation, there'll be a woman," she said.
More:'We ain't ready.' Michelle Obama says the country doesn't want a woman president.
At age 85, Pelosi's gait has slowed, but her posture remained ramrod straight during an hour-long conversation with Page. She wore a fire-engine red pantsuit and her signature stiletto heels, back after recovering from a fall and hip replacement surgery a year ago." style="max-width:100%; height:auto; border-radius:6px; margin:10px 0;" loading="lazy" /> After nearly 40 Years, Pelosi closes a historic chapter in Washington
At age 85, Pelosi's gait has slowed, but her posture remained ramrod straight during an hour-long conversation with Page. She wore a fire-engine red pantsuit and her signature stiletto heels, back after recovering from a fall andhip replacement surgerya year ago.
Was former first ladyMichelle Obamaright when she said last month that America wasn't ready for that idea?
"I don't know," Pelosi mused, then acknowledged, "I respect what she said, and I see the evidence of the two campaigns." Even though Clinton carried the popular vote, winning the Electoral College has proven to be "a tall order."
After decades of friendship, a breach with Biden
Democrats nominated Harris for president after PresidentJoe Bidenwithdrew just 107 days before the election amid concerns about his age and mental acuity. Pelosi played an important role in that decision, meeting with Biden and citing polls that challenged his belief he could win in November.
He heeded her counsel, but despite decades of political friendship, the two have never spoken again.
"I'm saddened by it because I love him and I respect him, but I respect his decision in that regard," Pelosi said. She added, "He did make a lovely statement when I announced my future plans, and I am grateful to him for that."
Biden's written statement called Pelosi "the best Speaker of the House in American history."
Meanwhile, Trump told reporters she was "an evil woman" who "did the country a great service by retiring."
In the end, Pelosi said, the decision to retire from Congress after 20 terms −20 TERMS −wasn't hard to reach.
"It was time," she said in the Dec. 11 interview. "I mean, I've been ready for a while." While she kept her decision secret until dramatically revealing it in a video last month, "I thought that I probably wouldn't run again" for some time.
There was a reason she kept that quiet, she added, as though stating the most obvious thing in the world: "You can't make yourself a lame duck."
Not if you're Nancy D'Alesandro Pelosi, the daughter of a three-term Baltimore mayor who became the most powerful woman in the history of the United States. She negotiated passage of historic legislation with Democratic presidents Barack Obama and Biden, and she was the nemesis of Republican ones, of President George W. Bush over the Iraq war and of Trump over, well, everything.
But if Democrats regain control of the House in next year's midterms − a prospect Pelosi describes as a certainty,given the president's sagging approval ratings− she doesn't think impeaching Trump should be on the agenda. She led two impeachments against him during his first presidential term.
"No," she said. "That's not an incidental thing, to say we're going to do that. No, there has to be cause; there has to be reason."
Instead, what congressional Democrats should do during the last two years of Trump's second term is hold the line and pave the path forregaining the White House in 2028.
"We won't be able to get his signature on things, maybe," she said of Trump, "but we'll be able to slow down the terror that he is inflicting on the country."
A slower gait, a less glorious view
She is 85 now. "I'm old!" she exclaims at one point, sounding slightly surprised.
Her gait is a bit more uncertain these days, but her posture during an hour-long conversation was as ramrod straight as when she arrived in town in 1987. She wore a fire-engine red pantsuit and her signature stiletto heels, back after recovering from a fall andhip replacement surgerya year ago.
Being "speaker emerita," the honorific she devised for her unique status, lacks the power and perks that came with being speaker or Democratic minority leader. She hadled the partyin one post or the other for two decades, from 2003 to 2023.
Consider: The speaker's suite, steps off the House floor, commands the best view in Washington, a sweeping vista of the National Mall.
Now her quarters in the Longworth House Office Building, as the representative of the 11th district of California, offer a view of the wall of the Rayburn House Office Building next door.
The first thing visitors see is a framed poster that then-Massachusetts Sen. Edward Kennedy gave her, showing a smiling Pelosi surrounded by pictures of the 51 male House speakers who preceded her.
In the hallway outside is a large bronze plaque honoring the law enforcement officers who defended the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, when rioters stormed the ceremonial counting of Electoral College votes that would affirm Biden's victory over Trump. "Their heroism will never be forgotten," it reads.
Pelosi's contempt for Trump, on public display when she stood behind him and shredded his speech text after the 2020 State of the Union, hasn't cooled. She calls his administration "corrupt, incoherent, chaotic, cruel" and his political priorities "sick."
As for her legacy, she calls the passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010 her proudest achievement, and the failure to enact gun legislation to curb mass shootings at schools and elsewhere her biggest disappointment.
'Not so fast on the epithet'
She acknowledges that her days of wielding power are over.
"I have, shall we say, no power right now, nor would I − I'll have even less when I'm not in Congress," she said. "But that doesn't mean I'm without influence." She will continue to press the issues she cares most about, and she'll be ready to offer "advice, if people want it."
She doesn't dismiss speculation that she is likely to endorse Connie Chan, a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and a candidate ina crowded fieldto succeed Pelosi in Congress. "I don't plan to do anything right now," she replied. The state Democratic convention is in February, "and we'll see how that goes."
Pelosi expressed confidence thather daughter, Christine,will win her bid for a California state senate seat in November and that Democrats will regain control of the U.S. House. "We only need three seats for Hakeem [Jeffries, the Democratic leader] to be speaker," she said. "I want more like 30."
But her agenda ahead sounds more personal than political. Her husband, Paul, is "doing OK" but still dealing with the trauma from thebrutal assaultat their San Francisco home by a hammer-wielding assailant, now sentenced to life in prison. "I feel terrible because they were looking for me; they get him," she said. "He pays the physical price; our children pay it in trauma."
She also wants to be more available to friends who are having "ups and downs."
People "say, well, what are you going to do next?" she said with an edge of exasperation. "And how about, would you consider this or that? And I said, 'I don't have to do anything; I'm old! I don't have to do anything else."
Years from now, what epithet would she like on her tombstone?
"Not so fast on the epithet," she replied crisply.
But she noted that on Veterans Day, she had placed flowers on the gravesite of her friends and predecessors, Phil Burton and Sala Burton, and admired the messages they had chosen. "His life was service; his love was the people," his epithet read. Hers: "She cared."
Susan Page, Washington Bureau chief of USA TODAY, is the author of "Madam Speaker: Nancy Pelosi and the Lessons of Power."
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:Nancy Pelosi on impeaching Trump, electing a woman president
