‘A NEW DAWN’
Pelosi makes history as latest House Speaker
WASHINGTON — Nancy Pelosi, a veteran Democrat brawler and vocal critic of Canada’s trade agreement with the United States and Mexico, resumed her role Thursday as Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, becoming the first woman in history to hold the gavel twice in her political career.
Pelosi presides over a diverse collection of representatives — the 116th Congress includes 102 women in the House and 25 in the Senate, a new record, and also sets new thresholds for black, Hispanic, Muslim, Indigenous and LGBTQ members — that is girding for battle with U.S. President Donald Trump.
“I now call the House to order on behalf of all of America’s children,” Pelosi said after summoning her grandkids to the podium, along with countless other young ones who were in the chamber to see family members take the oath of office.
Before she did it, though, she put the White House on notice that the new Democratic majority in the House was no accident.
“Two months ago, the American people spoke, and demanded a new dawn,” Pelosi said.
“They want a Congress that delivers results for the people, opening up opportunity and lifting up their lives.”
Thursday’s proceedings also made history in a bleaker way, marking the first time that Congress has been sworn in under the shadow of a partial government shutdown — the result of an ongoing standoff with the White House over funding for Trump’s long-promised wall along the southern border.
The president summoned reporters to an unannounced White House briefing Thursday, only to reiterate his position on funding the wall and to introduce a host of border-security and immigration officials who expressed support for his hard line.
In an interview with NBC’s Today show earlier Thursday, Pelosi said it remains an “open discussion” whether it’s possible to indict a sitting president, a hot topic in Washington given special counsel Robert Mueller’s ongoing investigation of ties between the Trump campaign and Russia.