After retaining her Democratic Party leadership last week, Rep. Nancy Pelosi made comments on the post-election landscape.
Pelosi, a longtime Democratic congresswoman from San Francisco, told CBS’s “Face the Nation” that “[she doesn’t] think people want a new direction” following a brutal Election Day that saw the legislative and executive branch dominated by Republicans.
“Our values unify us and our values are about supporting America’s working families,” she added. Pelosi was re-elected as House Minority Leader last week after battling opponent Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio, who argued that Democrats needed to appeal less to coastal elites.
“Let me just put that in perspective,” Pelosi said on the show. “When President Clinton was elected, Republicans came in big in the next election. When President Bush was president, we came in big in the subsequent election. When President Obama became president, the Republicans came in big in the next election.”
After President-elect Donald Trump’s win, Pelosi said Democrats could find common ground on some policies. Those include infrastructure, child care, and early childhood education.
But, she added, “We won’t work with him and this on privatization of Medicare and privatization of the VA,” she told CBS.
Pelosi, 76, has led the Democratic caucus for the past 14 years, becoming the first woman House speaker in 2007. She was first elected to Congress in 1987.
“This year voters went to the polls and made a bold statement for change in Washington but House Democrats just doubled down on the status quo,” the Republican National Committee stated following Pelosi’s win, per Business Insider.
“The fact that Tim Ryan was able to peel off over 60 Democrats in his campaign for Minority Leader reveals Democrats have no unified vision for our country and are content to once again entrust leadership to someone who has led their party into total irrelevance in the House.”
