In an exclusive interview with ABC News this evening, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi broke silence about the devastating losses her caucus suffered in Tuesday’s midterm. Fighting back tears at times, Pelosi called the results “disappointing,” but said she’s made no decisions about what’s next for her.
“I’ll have a conversation with my caucus, I’ll have a conversation with my family, and pray over it, and decide how to go forward,” she said. “Today isn’t that day.”
Pelosi described the outcome as you’d expect: “a very disappointing result…a tough loss.”
In a conversation with President Obama after it was clear the House was lost, the two “expressed pride in the work that we had done,” she said, and has “no regrets,” about how it all went down.
Now that Dems have lost one house in Congress, and seen their majority diminished in the other, Republicans have much more leverage, and are already threatening to use it.
Their chief goal, they say, is repealing Obama and Pelosi’s signature accomplishment: health care reform. Acknowledging that they could undercut that achievement, Pelosi said such an outcome would be “most unfortunate,” but that she doesn’t think a full repeal is in the cards.
In an interview with Fox News this evening, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Congress would not vote to increase the nation’s debt ceiling — legislation that must pass to avoid a global economic panic — without “strings.” Those strings could be attached to anything, including health care legislation.
