On Tuesday, during This Week on ABC News, host Jonathan Karl interviewed a glassy-eyed and possibly highly sauced former Speaker of the House, California Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-11). It is fascinating that they programmed this interview during "Twixmas," where most people forget what day it is and rarely get any work done, let alone bother to keep up on the news. Pelosi announced in early November 2025 that she would not seek another term in Congress and would be retiring at the end of 2026. So, Karl felt it was newsworthy enough to reflect on the first female speaker's career, but not newsworthy enough to air it at a time when people might be paying attention.
Telling.
In the interview, Pelosi prattled on about her rise to power and her 38 years holding tightly to those reins, her opposition to President Donald Trump (yawn), and what she wanted her legacy to be.
As our editor Bob Hoge reported, during this interview, Pelosi bragged about her 2020 State of the Union moment when she tore up President Donald Trump 45's speech.
The infamous moment came on February 4, 2020, when the then-House Speaker from California ripped up Donald Trump’s State of the Union speech on the floor of the House of Representatives moments after he had concluded giving his address. Pelosi thinks it was a profound statement that will go down in history. I think she’s right that it will go down in lore, but not for the reasons she envisions: in my view, it will be remembered as one of the most toxic modern-day examples of banana republic-style politics in our country. I imagine the Founders would have been appalled.
But the "Speaker Emerita" still thinks she’s some sort of hero[.]
Pelosi does indeed. Heavily deluded, along with being heavily botoxed, Pelosi further bragged that the photo of her act is her "most requested" autograph.
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Pelosi also expressed confidence that the Democrat party would retake the House in 2026 and move back into the majority. Pelosi preemptively anointed New York Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-08) as House Speaker, declaring that Jeffries "will be ready."
Temu Obama is barely ready for his stilted press conferences, let alone the speaker's gavel.
Another particularly gobsmacking moment is when Karl and Pelosi discussed January 6, 2021. Pelosi claimed that her daughter, Alexandra Pelosi, a documentary filmmaker by trade, was conveniently there to "witness" history with her sons when an "insurrection" broke out. Pelosi's daughter just happened to have a camera with her because every female filmmaker carries their Ultra HD 4K video camcorder in their purse.
Pelosi deflected from this with, "That's a different story. It's almost attached to her."
Sure, Jan.
The lies about the J6 fauxsurrection continue to be exposed: a color revolution devised to destroy then-former President Donald Trump and the people who supported him, and to erode freedom of speech and assembly. Because they knew the false narrative could not be sustained, Pelosi's daughter created her own revisionist history in the documentaries, The Insurrectionist Next Door and Pelosi in the House, which practically canonized her mother for sainthood. They are all good Catholics, after all.
Thanks to the release of the full footage of what happened on J6, other documentary filmmakers like Nick Searcy telling the truth about that day, and revelations that the so-called J6 witnesses were coached to lie, the entire insurrection narrative has been, and continues to be, debunked. Despite this, Pelosi remains "very proud" of her fraudulent J6 Committee, which, as my colleague Rusty Weiss described, was "clearly a heavily biased, anti-Trump circus meant solely to derail the President's previous campaign." They failed, bigly, and much of Pelosi's bitterness toward Trump that oozes through this interview is because, despite all the money spent and the miasma of deception and lawfare waged, he is again the president of the United States. That's got to burn like chronic acid reflux.
But Pelosi still gushed like a schoolgirl over her J6 Committee. "The work that they did and with clarity, patriotism, and the rest. They were wonderful. They were wonderful," Pelosi babbled.
But Pelosi says the crown jewel of her legacy that she would like to be remembered for is the Affordable Care Act (ACA), aka Obamacare.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said she hopes to be remembered for the Affordable Care Act (ACA), one of the most consequential pieces of health care legislation in American history.
“How do you want to be remembered?” ABC News’s Jonathan Karl asked Pelosi in an interview that aired Tuesday.
“Not so fast, I’m still here,” Pelosi jokingly replied. “Well, I’m very proud of the Affordable Care Act. I think that it was — 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. It’s not a value that is shared with the Republicans. So, if I were [to be] remembered for one thing, it would be the Affordable Care Act,” she added.
She further said: "The healthcare bill was a way of not only meeting health needs, but financial needs of families." It seems the hair dye and cosmetic treatments have finally melted her brain. Sixteen years later, the failure of the ACA is clearly evident in the fact that Democrats are fighting tooth and nail to sustain it. Thanks to Obamacare, more families are being bankrupted by healthcare costs. The Democrats' insistence on keeping Obamacare subsidies will ultimately bankrupt the country. It's a feature, not a bug.
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Pelosi, who has served in the House since 1987 and is the first woman to hold the role of Speaker, announced early last month that she would not run for another term.
As a seasoned political operative, Pelosi knew she had stayed too long at the fair. In this new age of Zohran Mamdani, Jasmine Crockett, and AOC, Pelosi's brand of politics no longer drives the Democrat party; the Democratic Socialists do. Pelosi also knows that her "legacy" of the ACA and J6 is being dismantled brick by brick, and more rapidly than she thought it would be. The ACA was never about affordable care anyway: its intent was to force the country into single-payer healthcare, and the leftist Democrats have almost succeeded. Just like J6 was never about preserving "democracy," it was about destroying an enemy and freedom-loving Americans.
For Pelosi, it was all about her leadership dominance, and she succeeded in that for a time. But every dog has its day, and those times are now in the rearview. At least she has the wherewithal to recognize it, rather than being wheeled around in a wheelchair by staffers in order to maintain a Democrat voting bloc as they did with the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein, or suffering the indignity of being foisted from leadership as she did to former President Joe Biden.
In the end, Pelosi will have to deal with the indignity of being the object of memes and mockery rather than an object of reverence and respect: Day Trader Nancy is the best Nancy, after all. Republicans have even named an anti-stock trading bill after her.
Salem Radio host and CNN commentator Scott Jennings mockingly suggested that, because of Pelosi's prolific day trading skills, President Trump should hire her to be in charge of the Social Security Administration.
WATCH:
In terms of January 6 and Trump, Pelosi said of Trump, "He'll pay a price in history." So will you, San Fran Nan. So will you. Most of us dream of a perp walk and an orange jumpsuit. In the meantime, we'll pop the popcorn as Pelosi's so-called legacy decomposes around her.
In case you missed it, here's the Pelosi ABC "This Week" interview.
WATCH:
https://redstate.com/jenniferoo/2026/01/01/nancy-pelosi-discusses-retirement-what-she-thinks-her-legacy-will-be-and-i-have-thoughts-n2197667
