前议长南希·佩洛西(Nancy Pelosi)相信，民主党将在2026年中期选举中重新夺回众议院，少数党领袖哈基姆·杰弗里斯(Hakeem Jeffries)将担任议长。
“哈基姆·杰弗里斯已经准备好了，他很有口才，他受到成员们的尊重，他是一个统一者，”佩洛西在周日播出的“本周”新采访中告诉美国广播公司新闻的乔纳森·卡尔。
"你确定会是哈基姆·杰弗里斯?"卡尔问道。
“没有，”佩洛西说。
这位加州民主党人于2022年11月辞去了该党的众议院领导职务，11月宣布她不会在2026年竞选连任。在她的任期还剩下大约一年的时候，这位长期的民主党领导人和众议院第一位女议长在华盛顿与卡尔谈论了她的职业生涯，她与唐纳德·特朗普总统的关系，并为民主党人的前进提供了建议。
佩洛西说，“当”民主党赢回众议院时，他们需要收回国会的权力，她认为目前共和党领导的国会基本上已经把权力交给了特朗普。
“现在，国会中的共和党人已经废除了国会。他们只是做总统坚持要他们做的事情。这一切都会过去的，”佩洛西说。"我们一拿到木槌，这一切就结束了."
但在是否对特朗普进行第三次弹劾的问题上，佩洛西表示，这取决于总统的行动。
“我对人们说，对唐纳德·特朗普的弹劾负责的人是唐纳德·特朗普。这不是你决定要做的事情，而是他违反了宪法，”她告诉卡尔。“所以你不能说，‘哦，我们要弹劾他。’但是你可以有传票的权力从这些现在不提供任何信息的政府机构那里获取信息。"
1987年，佩洛西第一次竞选国会议员时，她的竞选口号是“南希·佩洛西:一个会被听到的声音”。
“很有趣，是不是?我会成为众议院议长，当然，我的声音会被听到，但我从来没有想到这一点，这不是很有趣吗?
佩洛西当选时，众议院只有23名女性，她继续创造历史，成为第一位被选为政党党鞭的女性，第一位成为少数党领袖的女性，2007年，第一位成为众议院议长的女性，这使她成为第三顺位总统候选人。
“我实际上从未打算竞选领导。这就是这件事的有趣之处，因为我必须——我爱我的委员会、拨款、情报部门，”佩洛西告诉美国广播公司新闻。“但我们在94年、96年、98年都输了，然后又到了2000年。我说，你知道，作为(前)党主席，我知道如何赢得选举。我厌倦了失败。"
作为议长，佩洛西帮助巴拉克·奥巴马总统领导下的历史性立法，包括患者保护与平价医疗法案，佩洛西说她希望她会被记住。
“我为患者保护与平价医疗法案感到骄傲。我认为是这样的——就工薪家庭对健康和财务健康的需求而言，这只是一个巨大的变化。我们将继续这场斗争，”她说。“医疗保健法案不仅是满足健康需求的一种方式，也是满足家庭经济需求的一种方式。因此，如果我因为一件事而被记住，那就是患者保护与平价医疗法案。”
但她与特朗普的争议关系也将是她遗产的决定性部分。这包括她在他的第一个任期内撕毁他的最后一份国情咨文的病毒镜头——佩洛西说她没有计划过。
“我没打算去把演讲稿撕了。但我只是-它的第一部分，我撕了一页，因为它是谎言。然后下一页，然后下一页。我认为这是一个谎言的宣言，所以我最好撕毁整个演讲，”佩洛西说。“但我无意这么做。我以为我的员工要死了。”
佩洛西说，2021年1月6日，特朗普的一群支持者袭击了美国国会大厦，试图阻止对乔·拜登总统选举胜利的正式认证，这“绝对”是她议长生涯中最黑暗的一天。
她的女儿亚历山德拉·佩洛西(Alexandra Pelosi)那天和佩洛西一起在国会山，拍摄了她被疏散到一个安全设施的过程，她和其他国会领导人在那里花了几个小时试图返回国会大厦完成诉讼程序。2022年HBO纪录片《佩洛西在房子里》中出现了令人痛心的镜头。
“你脑子里在想什么?我的意思是，我们看到照片，我们看到痛苦，我们看到国会大厦正在发生什么——你脑子里在想什么?”卡尔问佩洛西。
“嗯，很明显，美国总统煽动叛乱。我们恳求他派遣国民警卫队，”佩洛西说。“就连米奇·麦康奈尔(Mitch McConnell)也在电话中对我们说，让他们马上过来。但他们从来没有送过。”
佩洛西补充说:“令人悲伤的是，这位总统试图重写历史，对那天发生的事情有不同的叙述。”
“那天发生的事情太可怕了。这是对作为世界民主象征的国会大厦的袭击。这是对国会的攻击，是对美国宪法的攻击，”她说。“太可怕了。”
在HBO的纪录片中，佩洛西表示，特朗普必须为国会大厦袭击事件“付出代价”。
“他为此付出代价了吗?”卡尔问道。
“不，他现在是美国总统。但历史会，他会在历史中付出代价。”
特朗普在2024年赢得总统大选后，针对特朗普的两起联邦案件被驳回，包括与他在国会大厦袭击发生前和当天的行为有关的指控。由于司法部的总统豁免权政策，被任命调查川普的特别顾问杰克·史密斯提交了一份撤销指控的动议。特朗普对针对他的所有联邦指控都不认罪。
在国会还剩一年时间的情况下，佩洛西表示，她的首要任务是将议事槌还给众议院民主党人。
“我很忙，专注于为民主党赢得众议院，让哈基姆·杰弗里斯成为众议院议长，并把我们带到一个更好的地方，”她说。
“总的来说，美国人民是好人。我希望看到我们带我们回到一个治理和政治都明白这一点的地方，”她补充说。“所以对我来说，除了为民主党赢得众议院之外，下一步我要做的是，我们试图将讨论带到一个相信美国人民善良的地方，给他们希望。”
Nancy Pelosi predicts Dems win House gavel back in ‘26, reflects on career and Jan. 6 attack
Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi is confident that Democrats will re-take the House of Representatives in the 2026 midterms and that Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries will hold the speaker’s gavel.
“Hakeem Jeffries is ready, he's eloquent, he's respected by the members, he is a unifier,” Pelosi told ABC News’ Jonathan Karl during a new interview that aired Sunday on “This Week.”
“You have no doubt it'll be Hakeem Jeffries?” Karl asked.
“None,” Pelosi said.
The California Democrat, who stepped down from the party’s House leadership in November 2022,announced in Novemberthat she would not run for reelection in 2026. With about year left in her term, the longtime Democratic leader and first female speaker of the House spoke to Karl in Washington about her career, her relationship with President Donald Trump, and offered advice for Democrats going forward.
Pelosi said that “when” Democrats win back the House, they need to reclaim Congress’ powers, which she argues the current Republican-led Congress has essentially handed over to Trump.
“Right now, the Republicans in the Congress have abolished the Congress. They just do what the president insists that they do. That will be over,” Pelosi said. “That ends as soon as we have the gavel.”
But on the question of whether to pursue a third impeachment of Trump, Pelosi said it depends on the president's actions.
“I've said to people, the one person who was responsible for the impeachments of Donald Trump is Donald Trump. It's not something you decide to do – it's what violation of the Constitution he engages in,” she told Karl. “So that's not something you say, ‘Oh, we're gonna impeach him.’ But you can have the power of subpoena to get information from these agencies of government who are not supplying any information now.”
When she first ran for Congress in 1987, Pelosi's campaign slogan was “Nancy Pelosi: A voice that will be heard.”
“It's funny, isn't it? Isn't it funny that I would become speaker of the House and, of course, my voice would be heard, but I never thought of that,” she reflected.
One of only 23 women in the House when she won, Pelosi went on to make history as the first woman chosen to be a party’s whip, the first woman to be minority leader and, in 2007, the first woman to be speaker of the House, making her third in line to the presidency.
“I actually never intended to run for leadership. That's what's so funny about this because I got to – I loved my committees, appropriations, intelligence,” Pelosi told ABC News. “But we lost in '94, '96, '98, and then it's coming up to 2000. I said, you know, being a [former] party chair, I know how to win elections. And I'm just tired of losing.”
As speaker, Pelosi helped shepherd historic legislation under President Barack Obama, including the Affordable Care Act, for which Pelosi said she hopes she’ll be remembered.
“I am very proud of the Affordable Care Act. I think that it was – it just made a big change in terms of what working families need for their health and their financial health. We'll continue to have that fight,” she said. “The health care bill was a way of not only meeting health needs, but financial needs of families. So if I were to be remembered for one thing, it would be the Affordable Care Act."
But her contentious relationship with Trump will be a defining part of her legacy, too. That includes the viral footage of her tearing up his final State of the Union address during his first term – something Pelosi said she hadn't planned.
"I didn't intend to go to the speech to tear it up. But I just – the first part of it, I tore a page because it was lying. And then the next page, and then the next page. And I thought it was a manifesto of lies all throughout, so I better just tear up the whole speech," Pelosi said. "But I had no intention of doing it. I thought my staff was going to die."
Pelosi said that the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters seeking to block formal certification of President Joe Biden's election victory was “absolutely” the darkest day of her speakership.
Her daughter, Alexandra Pelosi, was with Pelosi on Capitol Hill that day, filming her as she was evacuated to a secure facility where she and the rest of congressional leadership then spent hours trying to return to the Capitol to finish the proceedings. The harrowing footage was featured in the 2022 HBO documentary, “Pelosi in the House.”
“What's going through your head? I mean, we see the pictures, we see the anguish, we see what's happening to the Capitol – what's going through your head?” Karl asked Pelosi.
“Well, it was clear that the president of the United States had incited an insurrection. And we begged him to send the National Guard,” Pelosi said. “Even Mitch McConnell was on the phone with us saying, get them here right away. But they never sent them.”
“The sorrow of it also springs from the fact that this president is trying to rewrite history, have a different narrative of what happened that day,” Pelosi added.
“What happened that day was horrible. It was an assault on the Capitol, the symbol of democracy to the world. It was an assault on the Congress, the day we honored our responsibility under the Constitution to certify the Electoral College, who was elected president, as an assault on the Constitution of the United States,” she said. “It was horrible.”
In the HBO documentary, Pelosi says Trump must “pay a price” for the Capitol attack.
“Has he paid a price for it?” Karl asked.
“No, he's president of the United States now. But history will, he'll pay a price in history.”
After Trump won the presidential election in 2024, the two federal cases against Trump, including the charges related to his actions leading up to and on the day of the Capitol attack, were dismissed. Jack Smith, the special counsel appointed to investigate Trump, filed a motion to dismiss the charges because of the Justice Department’s presidential immunity policy. Trump pleaded not guilty to all federal charges levied against him.
With a year left in Congress, Pelosi said her priority is returning the gavel to House Democrats.
“I'm busy, and focused on winning the House for the Democrats, making Hakeem Jeffries the Speaker of the House, and to take us to a better place,” she said.
“By and large, the American people are good people. And I would like to see us take us back to a place where governance and politics understand that,” she added. “So what's next for me is whatever I do in addition to winning the House for the Democrats is that we try to take the discussion to a place that believes in the goodness of the American people, that gives them hope.”
