[Text/Observer Network Zhou Yibo]
The 2022 midterm elections in the United States are still going on. Control of the Senate has been locked up by the Democratic Party. Whether Speaker of the House of Representatives Pelosi will seek re-election after the Democrats win the House of Representatives has become one of the focuses of the outside world.
According to Associated Press news, on November 13, local time, Pelosi said in an interview with a news program that her colleagues were trying to persuade her to run for the leadership of the Democratic House of Representatives, but she wanted to wait until the mid-term elections were settled before making a decision.
Screenshot of the Associated Press report
Public information shows that 82-year-old Nancy Pelosi has served as a U.S. Representative from California since 1987. She became the minority leader of the House of Representatives in 2003 and is the first woman to hold this position in the United States.
After the Democratic Party won the 2006 midterm election, Pelosi served as the Speaker of the House of Representatives from 2007 to 2011 (The Republican won the 2010 midterm election, and Pelosi became the minority leader of the House of Representatives) and from 2019 to the present. She is also the first female speaker in the United States.
In the order of succession of the President of the United States, the Speaker of the House of Representatives is the second in line of succession after the Vice President of the United States, and is also the third most influential politician in American politics. Under the U.S. Constitution, the Speaker of the House of Representatives has no re-election limit.
In 2018, after the Democrats won the midterm elections that year, Pelosi publicly promised that this would be her last term as speaker after leading House Democrats for the past 19 years. However, Pelosi officially announced her bid for re-election in November 2020 and successfully extended her term as speaker.
According to the Associated Press, on the 13th, Pelosi was interviewed by CNN (CNN)'s "State of the Union" program and ABC (ABC)'s "This Week" program to talk about her future plans in the House of Representatives.
"People are running, and that's a wonderful thing. And I'm not asking anything of anyone," Pelosi said. "My colleagues asked me to consider doing that. But let's get through the midterm elections first... There's a lot at stake because we're also going to have the (2024) presidential election."
reported that the “colleague request” Pelosi referred to refers to the House Democratic leader election planned to be held on November 30. If the Democratic Party succeeds in winning the House of Representatives in the mid-term elections, the House Democratic leader will become the Speaker of the House of Representatives.
On the contrary, if the Republicans win, the speaker's seat will be taken by House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy .
Pelosi said that her decision on whether to run for Speaker of the House of Representatives again will be related to "family" and "colleagues" and that the Democratic Party needs to move forward "in a very unified way" before entering the new Congress and the 2024 presidential election cycle.
However, Pelosi also hinted that regardless of whether she continues to serve as speaker, she will exert her political influence in the future. "There are various ways to exert influence... Although the speaker has great power, my influence will always exist."
Pelosi was interviewed by CNN's "State of the Union" program. Video screenshot
On November 12, Democratic Senator Catherine Cortez Masto successfully retained her seat in Nevada, allowing the Democratic Party to maintain control of the Senate with a slim margin of 50:49. However, in the House of Representatives, since the Democratic and Republican parties have not yet won the 218 seats that are enough to control the House of Representatives, the status of the majority party has not yet been determined.
As of now, the Republicans have won 212 seats, the Democrats have won 204 seats, and the results of 19 seats are still being counted.
Although the outside world generally predicts that the Republican Party has a higher probability of winning the House of Representatives, Pelosi insisted in an interview on the 13th, "We still believe that we have a chance to win this election... No one thought that we would be so evenly matched before. However, we have expected this situation."
"Two months ago, who would have thought that this 'red wave' would become a trickle?" Pelosi said, "But we never believed (the red wave)."
When talking about US President Biden , Pelosi believed that Biden should run for re-election, and pointed out Biden's legislative achievements, such as the infrastructure construction bill and the inflation reduction bill passed by both parties, "He has always been a great president, and his campaign record is also very good.
During the interview, Pelosi also spoke of her assaulted husband. She said her husband's recovery will be a "long process, but he's doing great," and that the trauma of the attack was "exacerbated" by Republicans' "ridiculous, disrespectful attitudes."
"This was more than just an attack, and the Republican response to it was disgraceful." " Pelosi said.
According to previous reports by the Observer, in the early morning of October 28, the suspect David Depep broke into Pelosi's home in San Francisco and attacked Pelosi's husband Paul Pelosi with a hammer. People familiar with the matter said that Depep's target was Pelosi himself. He once asked Paul Pelosi: "Where is Nancy ? Where is Nancy? "
In addition, De Pep also tried to tie up Paul Pelosi "until Nancy comes home." When the police arrived at the scene, De Pep also shouted that he was "waiting for Nancy."
It is worth noting that on the eve of the mid-term elections, Pelosi also "sold out votes" around the attack on her husband in a public speech. She said the incident would affect her decision to stay in Congress after the midterm elections, while calling on Republicans to stop any actions that encourage political violence and urging Americans to "vote to defend our democracy."
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