Trump jumps in to offer aid to Pelosi’s speaker bid
‘She deserves’ it, he says; party’s foes seek change
WASHINGTON — Democrats won the majority. Now they just need a speaker of the House.
The standoff over Nancy Pelosi’s bid to regain the gavel intensified as Democrats left Washington for the Thanksgiving break in what has turned out to be an unsettling finish to an otherwise triumphant week that saw them welcome a historic class of newcomers to Capitol Hill and prepare to take control from Republicans.
Democratic Rep. Seth Moulton, the hard-charging Marine who served four tours of duty in Iraq, is leading the challenge to Pelosi — and is taking incoming political fire from all quarters.
Outraged, Pelosi’s backers have characterized the effort as a sexist putsch and urged calls to Moulton’s office as well as the other male Democratic opponents.
President Donald Trump jumped in to offer some help, saying Saturday that he could “perform a wonderful service” by rounding up Republican votes for Pelosi’s candidacy.
“I like her, can you believe it?,” Trump told reporters. “I like Nancy Pelosi. She’s tough and she’s smart, but she deserves to be speaker, and now they’re playing games with her, just like they’ll be playing with me.”
Pelosi, who was the first woman to become speaker and served from 2007 to 2011, was certain that she will hold that post again.
She dismissed Moulton’s challenge and insists she has the votes.
“I will be speaker of the House no matter what he says,” she said Wednesday.
Pelosi was expected to work the phones from California during the break after meeting privately with newly elected Democrats who could be crucial to her bid.
Moulton, 40, and the dozen-plus incumbents and newly elected members insist the House needs new leadership, not the 78-yearold California congresswoman who engineered a Democratic takeover of the House, flipping 36 seats and counting.
“If that many seats change hands, that’s just all the more reason the American people are calling out for change,” Moulton said in a recent interview. “So for our party to respond by saying, ‘… We’re going to reinstall the exact same status quo leadership that you voted out many years ago.’ It’s just shooting ourselves in the foot. It guarantees a twoyear majority.”
Newly elected lawmakers indicated they were having good meetings with the leader, though few said the talks had changed their minds.
“It isn’t about her, it’s about wanting new leadership,” said Rep.-elect Abigail Spanberger of Virginia, a former CIA operative who defeated tea party Republican Rep. Dave Brat in suburban Richmond. “There isn’t anything she could say, because the decision isn’t about her.”
Moulton & Co. have not been able to recruit an alternative to run against Pelosi in the Nov. 28 caucus elections, though Rep. Marcia Fudge, D-Ohio, is pondering a run.
Fudge met with Pelosi and said she would probably decide after Thanksgiving break whether she will run.
“To her credit, she wanted to know what my concerns were,” Fudge said. “What she asked me was, basically, how we could get to a point where I’m supportive.”
Moulton says the showdown is destined to last until lawmakers cast their speaker votes on the House floor on Jan. 3.
“God knows she’s a good arm-twister,” he said of Pelosi, “but it’s clearly not the right thing to do for the party or for the country or for their own re-election prospects.”