CALVIN WOODWARD and NANCY BENAC | AP News

There are two searing scenes of Nancy Pelosi confronting the violent extremism that spilled into the open late in her storied political career. In one, she’s uncharacteristically shaken in a TV interview as she recounts the brutal attack on her husband.

In the other, the House speaker rips open a package of beef jerky with her teeth during the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection, while on the phone with Mike Pence, firmly instructing the Republican vice president how to stay safe from the mob that came for them both. “Don’t let anybody know where you are,” she said. That Pelosi, composed and in command at a time of chaos, tart but parochial-school proper at every turn, is the one whom lawmakers have obeyed, tangled with, respected and feared for two decades.

She is the most powerful woman in American politics and one of the nation’s most consequential legislative leaders — through times of war, financial turmoil, a pandemic and an assault on democracy. Now, at 82, in the face of political loss and personal trauma, she decided her era was ending. Pelosi stood in the well of a rapt House on Thursday and announced she would not seek a Democratic leadership position in the Congress that convenes in January, when Republicans take control of the chamber.

Pelosi, who will remain a member of the House, took her time revealing the news, looking back over an improbable career and recalling her first visit to the Capitol at age 6 with her congressman father. “Never would I have thought that I would go from homemaker to House speaker,” she allowed. On her future, she told reporters: “I like to dance, I like to sing. There’s a life out there, right?” Polarizing and combative, Pelosi nevertheless forged compromises with Republicans on historic legislation.

Across the policy spectrum, whether you liked the results or not, she delivered votes that touched ordinary lives in many ways. Among them: how millions get health care, the state of the roads, the lightened burden of student debt, the minimum wage, progress on climate change that took over a decade to bear fruit. Even former Republican Speaker Newt Gingrich, a self-described “partisan conservative who thinks that most of her positions are insane,” said Pelosi had a “remarkable” run. This, from a fellow “troublemaker with a gavel,” as she called herself.

He flamed out; she didn’t. “Totally dominant,” Gingrich said of her in an interview. “She’s clearly one of the strongest speakers in history. She has shown enormous perseverance and discipline.”

FEW SURVIVE

Those qualities are essential if you don’t want to be run out of town, as was a succession of modern Republican speakers, back to Gingrich. It’s one thing to herd sheep. It’s another thing altogether to herd Democrats and all their messy factions. Pelosi dealt with conservative Blue Dog Democrats, the liberal women of the Squad, the Out of Iraq Caucus — not to mention old-guard legislators who treated their committees like fiefdoms.

Many of the above, at one point or another, earned her look of icy disapproval, well practiced and not always reserved just for the other side. “Politics is tough,” she said in 2015, “but intraparty? Oh, brother.” Squad member Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, not always Pelosi’s biggest fan, spoke Thursday of how Pelosi had “served as a beacon of hope” to her and her family when they migrated from Somalia. Omar, at times the subject of “send her back” chants during Donald Trump’s rallies, recalled that Pelosi had invited her to join her on a 2019 trip to Africa “to represent how far we have come as a country.” Princeton political scientist Frances Lee said there’s no doubt Pelosi was a “truly great legislative leader, among a handful truly in command.

She’s really had her party in the House of Representatives in hand. The difficulty of managing them should not be underrated. It didn’t always look pretty but she held the party together.” Pelosi prevailed — for nearly 20 years as House Democratic leader including nearly eight as speaker in two separate stints — with hard-nosed sentiments like these: “Whoever votes against the speaker will pay a price.” — to Democrats who resisted her push for a select committee on climate change early in her speakership. “Nobody’s walking out of here saying anything, if they want to keep an intact neck.” — to negotiators trying to work out a 2007 House-Senate compromise to restrain pork, according to the notes of John A. Lawrence, her then-chief of staff and author of a new insider book on her speakership, “Arc of Power.” Sometimes, she could snap her lawmakers into line without a word.

A flick of her hand was all it took to silence Democrats who cheered when the House first passed articles of impeachment against Trump. It was an occasion for sobriety and Pelosi was a stickler for institutional decorum. But not always. She ripped up her copy of Trump’s 2020 State of the Union speech, on the dais behind him, on camera. The theatrical protest at one of American democracy’s prime rituals raised questions about whether Pelosi, in that moment, had become what she despised in Trump. Afterward, she said she had extended her “hand of friendship” to him when he arrived but he did not take it. “He looked a little sedated,” she added.

As she read quickly through her copy of the speech while Trump delivered it, she stewed over the lines and decided to take action. “He has shredded the truth in his speech, shredded the Constitution in his conduct — I shredded the address,” she said crisply. “Thank you all very much.”

THE VILLAINIZATION

In 2007, Republican President George W. Bush opened his speech as the “first president to begin his State of the Union with these words: Madam Speaker.” He grinned, she beamed, an ovation followed.

Although she maintained a genial relationship with the Bush family — especially the elder George Bush — Republican campaigns seized on her as the perfect foil early on and never let go. She was pilloried as “Darth Nancy” in the 2006 campaign and the villainization got much uglier, complete with gun imagery, as the years passed and politics became more toxic. “She was, she is, the personification of the San Francisco liberal,” Lawrence said in an interview. “It was made to order for them.”

But “with her there was a viciousness. The fact that she fit that bill so perfectly — a smart, attractive, effective woman … they knew they could caricature and stigmatize things about her, her appearance and style, in a way that was a very effective dog whistle of misogyny.” Republicans often did it simply to raise money, and it worked. Then they used her in ads to attack Democratic congressional candidates. Some of those worked, too, At least publicly, she would never attribute the attacks to the fact she’s a woman, Lawrence said. “She would say, ‘They did it because I’m effective.’”

Then “pretend to flick dust” off her immaculate jacket. “Darth Nancy” was a quaint, faraway insult by the time the pro-Trump mob came looking for her that Jan. 6. Their sign at the Capitol said “Pelosi is Satan.” Rifling through her desk in the abandoned speaker’s office, they found a pair of boxing gloves. Pink ones.

THE DO-LOTS CONGRESS

Over the years, Pelosi honed the art of aiming high, then disappointing one faction of her party or another without losing her core of support. Rare is the major achievement that was as far left as the party’s left wing wanted it to be. But many are the major achievements. She settled for an “Obamacare” bill that did not give everyone the option of government health insurance, but did, over time, fundamentally expand access to health care.

As financial institutions and large segments of the economy sank into the Great Recession, with the 2008 election looming, she settled for a Bush-era stimulus package that essentially bailed out Wall Street — when liberal Occupy Wall Street activists had very different ideas. She delivered Democratic votes to help even some Trump initiatives get over the line, like early COVID-19 pandemic relief, before swinging behind President Joe Biden on some of the most far-reaching legislation since Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society push in the 1960s. And Bono, who worked with Pelosi over the years on combating AIDS, said in a statement to the AP after a performance Thursday night in Scotland: “When the story of the end of AIDS is written, Nancy Pelosi’s name will stand out in boldface.” “I am honored to have learned so much from her grit and grace, and to call her a friend,” he added.

For all the accolades, Pelosi crushed a multitude of toes along the way. “Her instincts are to find a path and if you happen to be standing in the hole, she’s going to treat you like a running back,” said political scientist Cal Jillson at Southern Methodist University. “If she can go through you, fine. If not, you’re headed to the medicine tent.” Some of the toes squashed by Pelosi belong to Jane Harman, a fellow Californian who long ran in the same circles as the speaker. She returned to Congress in 2001 after a two-year gap, armed with a written promise from Democratic leaders that she could reclaim her seniority and become chair of the sought-after Intelligence Committee if the party took control of the chamber. When Democrats did so in 2007 and Pelosi became speaker, she bumped Harman from the committee, citing term limits that had not always been evenly applied.

Harman believes the real reason was that Pelosi was under pressure from liberals not to give the job to someone who had supported the war in Iraq. “I think, looking back, that she was under pressure from the left not to promote somebody who had voted for the war.” Still, Harman, who left Congress in 2011 to lead the Wilson Center think tank, allows that Pelosi has “a very good political radar and she has kept the caucus together.” When Pelosi entered Congress in 1987, men chaired all the House committees and no women had led one since the 1970s, by the reckoning of House historians. In the 1970s, the most popular committee chair appointment for women in the House was to lead the Select Committee on the House Beauty Shop before that panel vanished at the end of that decade.

Under Pelosi, women took over more panels and gained weightier assignments while the speaker worked to advance authority for minorities in her ranks as well as their numbers. “She led in a way that did set the stage for other women and open the doors for their potential,” said Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Woman and Politics, at Rutgers University. “Things have moved. And she is a big part of that.”

THE PELOSI CEILING

Because of the speaker’s longevity, however, many other up-and-comers in the party besides Harman have discovered they could only rise so far before hitting the Pelosi ceiling.

The top job simply hadn’t been available. Pelosi faced none of the questions about sharpness or stamina that dog Biden, 80 on Sunday. She still races around Congress, in high heels, at a pace that people half her age can find hard to match. But even before the elections, concern had grown in the ranks about the crowd of older Democratic leaders from the same era still in charge. “No brewing rebellion,” said Lee at Princeton, but “a sense that maybe it is time.”

Leon Panetta, former CIA and Defense chief and chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, had nothing but praise for Pelosi’s leadership and skill but said she “probably could have spent more time building a stronger bench in terms of leadership in the House and trying to make sure that others could follow in her path. That becomes a question mark now as to just exactly who’s going to be able to replace her.” Panetta met her in the 1980s when he was a congressman from California and she was getting started as a Democratic fund-raiser extraordinaire after her family had moved to that state.

She had already learned lessons about transactional politics as the politically engaged daughter of Thomas J. D’Alesandro Jr., a three-term Baltimore mayor and five-term member of Congress from Maryland. Her prowess in persuading people to open their wallets on behalf of Democratic candidates was one of the keys to her success. Harman calls those dollars crucial to the “big tent” that Pelosi erected for her caucus and to her ability to hold sway over it — “a $1.25 billion tent.” Michigan Rep. Fred Upton, a Republican who was in the same freshman class with Pelosi and is retiring from Congress, said of her: “This is why the Democrats had more money than God. She was magic, and I don’t think she lost a vote.” Gingrich tacks on other elements of her power: “Her fundraising, her ability to inspire intense loyalty, her willingness to punish people who don’t do what she wants.” “As a professional, you have to have great respect for her ability to acquire and wield power and her ability to build what was an effective machine,” he said. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said in a statement that despite their many disagreements, “I have seen firsthand the depth and intensity of her commitment to public service. There is no question that the impact of Speaker Pelosi’s consequential and path-breaking career will long endure.”

In Pelosi’s reign, nothing was left to chance — even her clothing was curated to send a message: She paired a black dress worn during the Trump impeachments with a gold pin depicting the mace of the House, a symbol of her power. When she swooshed out the doors of the White House after one particularly pointed encounter with Trump, her sunglasses and burnt-orange winter coat were quickly the stuff of social media memes. On Thursday, for the big reveal of her plans, Pelosi wore suffragette white and her mace brooch.

Pelosi told reporters the attack on her husband, Paul, also 82, last month made her inclined to stay in leadership, so as not to give extremists the satisfaction of seeing her leave. She might have hung in, she indicated, if Democrats had won a majority. The attacker, who police say had come looking for the speaker, fractured her husband’s skull with a hammer. Pelosi said she is working through “survivor’s guilt.” Could there be a third-generation Pelosi headed to Congress after the speaker and her father? It’s long been thought that Nancy’s daughter, Christine, would be at the front of the line for the congressional seat whenever Pelosi decided to retire.

In her time, Pelosi went beyond domestic politics to stake a claim to congressional influence in foreign policy on behalf of the House as an institution, pointing her gavel outward in a way speakers had rarely done. Well beyond her annual Mother’s Day visits to women in combat overseas, Pelosi traveled to foreign leaders with a mission to project U.S. stability, particularly during the unpredictable Trump years but also before and after. She traveled secretly to Kiev early in the Russia-Ukraine war and caused some grief in the Biden administration with her diplomatically dicey visit to Taiwan this year. Pelosi had a history of standing up to China.

In her first foreign trip after being elected to Congress in 1987, she joined other U.S. lawmakers in 1991 in unfurling a banner at Tiananmen Square after Chinese authorities crushed pro-democracy demonstrations there in 1989. Her recent Taiwan visit was another slap at Beijing. For all her clout in government, Pelosi was an unpopular figure in the country overall. In a Pew Research Center poll conducted in late June and early July, only about a third of respondents had a favorable opinion of Pelosi, while 6 in 10 were unfavorable toward her.

Most Democrats and Democratic leaners — about 6 in 10 — were thumbs up about her, though she lagged Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, both rated favorably by three-quarters of Democrats. About 9 in 10 Republicans viewed her unfavorably. Through it all, she went at practically everything as if it had a best-before date. After all, she would say, “Power is perishable.” Washington is “the perishable city.”

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the attack on her husband, Paul, by an intruder in their family home made her think about staying on as the House Democratic leader because she “couldn’t give them that satisfaction” of intimidating her out of politics.

But Pelosi said Thursday she was ready to step aside and felt “balanced” about her decision to make way for a new generation of leaders.

She’s staying as the congresswoman of San Francisco but has no plans to endorse a successor or meddle with the new leaders.

“I have no intention of being the mother-in-law in the kitchen saying, ‘My son doesn’t like the stuffing that way,’” Pelosi said in a wide ranging interview with reporters at the Capitol.

“They will have their vision, they will have their plan.”

As for the future direction of the House Democrats, she said: “That’s up to them, I want it to be whatever they want it to be.”

Pelosi, who is 82, spoke to reporters in the “The Board of Education” Room, a historic space once frequented after hours only by the men in Congress, after she announced her decision to step down after 20 years as the party leader. Her action followed the midterm elections t hat gave Republicans control of the House.

First elected in 1987, when there were just 12 Democratic women in Congress, Pelosi said she chose to wear white to deliver her speech on the House floor Thursday in a nod to the suffragettes — noting a painting of the women with the 19th Amendment she had installed in the gilded meeting room alongside one of San Francisco’s Golden Gate bridge.

Digging into a package of cookies — chocolate chip, of course — the speaker would not say exactly when she made her decision to step aside.

She keeps a close hold on her most important decisions, and even now, once it had spilled out in the open, said how she finally arrived at her choice was something she might have to think more about. It was known that she took two versions of her speech home with her for review Wednesday night.

“I, quite frankly, personally, have been ready to leave for a while,” she said. “Because there are things I want to do. I like to dance, I like to sing. There’s a life out there, right?”

Pelosi said that after 20 years, “I don’t feel sad about not having a leadership position. …I feel balanced about it.”

She has said that the attack on Paul Pelosi, who suffered a fractured skull when an intruder broke into their home weeks before the election searching for her, had weighed on her decision. But she said Thursday that it had the “opposite effect” from what some had interpreted.

“It made me think again about staying,” she said. “I couldn’t give them that satisfaction.”

Had Democrats been able to retain majority control of the House, she indicated, that too might have prompted a different outcome: “I would have prayed over it.”

Pelosi insisted she has much to do representing her California district, but said she won’t likely be taking any committee assignments typically coveted by other lawmakers — particularly a seat on the Appropriations Committee that crafts federal funding bills that are important for states.

And she plans to get to work reviewing the 2022 election results and preparing for the next big votes in 2024.

Long seen as a powerful figure, one who controls and even micromanages many aspects of House leadership —- from the way the bills are written to the timing of votes to the running of congressional campaigns — she said she expects to play no role guiding the next generation of leaders.

“They have to bring their own fresh perspective, thinking entrepreneurially,” she said.

She won’t be endorsing a successor ahead of party elections at the end of the month — “I didn’t think that was the right approach, to anoint somebody,” she said. She said it’s “really important for people to have the legitimacy that they were chosen” by their colleagues.

Her advice to those who follow her leadership: “Be yourself.”

As for upcoming political battles, she questioned whether Republican Kevin McCarthy, a fellow Californian, would have the support needed to become speaker.

And she said she doesn’t “take any responsibility” for the political divisions in Congress, blaming it on Republican extremism: “They do not believe in governance.”

While Pelosi expressed some regret that Democrats were unable to make permanent an expanded child tax credit or paid family medical leave as they had considered at the start of Joe Biden’s presidency, she believes her party will have some leverage in the new Congress because of the House Republicans’ slim majority.

“There has to be work for other people to do,” she said.

Pelosi said her husband of nearly 60 years continues to recover from the assault — the intruder struck him in the head with a hammer — but that the road ahead is long.

Sitting still, without too many people — limiting visits with the children and grandchildren — and avoiding recurring memories of the assault are key, she explained.

“It’s really hard,” she said, acknowledging a form of “survivor’s guilt” since the attack was aimed at her and turned their home into a “crime scene.”

But the leader long reviled by Republicans as a San Francisco liberal announced she was off to do the most very un-California thing she does most workdays: “I will now have a very nutritious hot dog for lunch.”

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WASHINGTON (AP) — With control of the House still hanging in the balance, Speaker Nancy Pelosi stayed mum Sunday on her future plans but said congressional colleagues are urging her to seek another term as Democratic leader following a strong showing in the midterm elections.

Appearing in Sunday news shows, Pelosi said Democrats are “still alive” in their fight to win the chamber and that she will make a decision on whether to run for House leadership in the next couple weeks.

“People are campaigning and that’s a beautiful thing. And I’m not asking anyone for anything,” she said, referring to House Democratic leadership elections set for Nov. 30. “My members are asking me to consider doing that. But, again, let’s just get through the (midterm) election.”

“A great deal is at stake, because we will be in a presidential election,” Pelosi said.

Over the weekend, Democrats clinched control of the Senate following Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto’s victory in Nevada. But in the House, a majority remains unsettled with neither party having yet reached the 218 seats needed to control the 435-member chamber. As of Sunday, Republicans had 212 seats compared to 204 for the Democrats, with 19 races still to be called by The Associated Press.

Some races can take days or even weeks to call.

Pelosi, D-Calif., declined to predict whether her party will retain control of the House, saying she was “disappointed” with four Democratic losses in New York, including by Congressional Campaign Chairman Sean Patrick Maloney, which ultimately could make the difference.

“Nonetheless, we still think we have a chance to win this,” she said. “Nobody would have ever expected that we would be this close. Well, we expected it.”

On the GOP side, House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy is seeking to become House speaker if his party prevails, but the disappointing showing in the midterms has created turmoil for leaders and calls for a new direction. Former President Donald Trump’s effect on the 2022 races is also being hotly debated as he prepares to announce another run.

Pelosi on Sunday said she believed that President Joe Biden should run for a second term, citing his legislative accomplishments such as the bipartisan infrastructure law and the Inflation Reduction Act as well as the creation of millions of jobs under his watch.

“He has been a great president and he has a great record to run on,” she said.

The 82-year-old Pelosi, who has led Democrats in the House since 2003 and is the first female speaker, had struck a deal with House members to serve for two more terms as leader — or four years — after Democrats won control of the chamber in 2018. But she hasn’t announced her plans, nor have her top two deputies, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., and Whip Jim Clyburn, D-S.C. There has been some pressure from younger House members to pass the torch to new leaders.

Pelosi’s decision also comes after her husband was attacked late last month in the couple’s San Francisco home, suffering a skull fracture and other injuries. The intruder, 42-year-old David DePape, demanded “Where is Nancy?” before striking Paul Pelosi with a hammer. She was in Washington at the time.

Pelosi said Sunday that her husband’s recovery will be a “long haul, but he’s doing well,” though the trauma of the attack was “intensified” by Republicans’ “ridiculous, disrespectful attitude.” Top Republicans, including Trump, had downplayed the attack and spread misinformation about it.

“It wasn’t just the attack. It was the Republican reaction to it, which was disgraceful,” she said.

Pelosi said her decision on whether to run again for House leadership will be “about family” but “also my colleagues,” citing a need to move forward “in a very unified way” going into a new Congress and the 2024 campaign season. She stressed the opportunities for Democrats that lie ahead.

“Who would have thought two months ago that this red wave would turn into a little tiny trickle, if that at all?” she said. “But we never believed that. We believed.”

“There are all kinds of ways to exert influence,” Pelosi added. “Speaker has awesome power, but I will always have influence.”

Pelosi spoke on CNN’s “State of the Union” and ABC’s “This Week.”

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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Monday the brutal attack on her husband will impact her decision on whether to remain in Congress after the midterm election, as she called on Republicans to stop the misinformation that is fueling political violence and urged Americans to “vote to defend our democracy.” In a wide-ranging CNN interview, the Democratic leader did not disclose her future plans if the party loses the House majority, as many believe Pelosi and others will step down.

Known for her stiff resolve, Pelosi’s voice cracked with emotion and she acknowledged she was “close to tears” as she described the trauma of the attack on her 82-year-old husband and the sadness she felt for the country. “I’m sad because of my husband, but I’m also sad for our country,” Pelosi said. “I just want people to vote and we will respect the outcome of the election, and I would hope that the other side would do that as well,” she said. Pelosi was speaking for the first time publicly on the eve of elections as the Democrats are struggling against a surge of Republican enthusiasm to keep control of Congress at a time of rising threats of violence against lawmakers and concerns over the U.S. election.

Asked whether she had made a decision on whether or not to remain in Congress, Pelosi who rarely publicly discussed her future would only disclose that the attack on her husband had impacted her thinking. “I have to say my decision will be affected about what happened in the last week or two,” Pelosi said on CNN. Top Republican leaders including allies of Donald Trump and even new Twitter-owner Elon Musk have mocked and downplayed the attack, despite the gravity of the assault on her husband. “There has to be some message to the Republicans to stop to stop the disinformation,” she said. “We want the country to heal.”

Pelosi’s husband, Paul, was bludgeoned 11 days before the election by an intruder authorities said broke into the family’s San Francisco and was looking for the speaker before striking him in the head with a hammer at least once. The intruder told police he wanted to talk to Speaker Pelosi and would “break her kneecaps” as a lesson to other Democrats. Paul Pelosi suffered a fractured skull and other injuries in what authorities said was an intentional political attack. “For me this is the hard part because Paul was not the target, and he’s the one paying the price,” Pelosi said. Pelosi said the hammer hit her husband in two places, but did not pierce his brain. Pelosi said his recovery was “on a good path” but she acknowledged “it’s a long haul.”

Long a target of Republican attacks, Pelosi said the assault on her husband of nearly 60 years, with its echoes of the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection at the Capitol, was fueled by misinformation “that has no place in our democracy.” Pelosi said she was sleeping at her apartment in Washington, having just returned from San Francisco, when there was a “bang, bang, bang, bang, bang,” on her door. It was about 5 a.m. on the morning of Oct. 28. “I was very scared,” Pelosi told CNN in an interview. “I’m thinking my children, my grandchildren. I never thought it would be Paul.” “We didn’t even know where he was or what his condition was,” Pelosi said, in excerpts of the interview. “We just knew there was an assault on him in our home.”

David DePape, 42, is being held without bail in San Francisco after entering a not guilty plea to attempted murder and other charges in San Francisco. He also faces federal charges of attempted kidnapping of an elected official. The fringe activist who followed conspiracy theories broke into the Pelosi home, woke up Paul Pelosi and demanded to talk to “Nancy,” authorities said. When Paul Pelosi told the intruder his wife was out of town, DePape said he would wait. After Paul Pelosi called 911, officers arrived to see the two men struggling over a hammer before DePape struck Paul Pelosi at least once in the head with the hammer.

DePape later told police he wanted to kidnap the speaker and threatened to injure her “to show other members of Congress there were consequences to actions.” The authorities’ stark narrative laid out in court filings in the case comes in contrast to the jokes and innuendo that conservatives and some Republican officials have spread about the Pelosis in the aftermath of the attack.

Pelosi has said little since the attack on her husband, cutting short her campaign appearances but spoke in a virtual call to grassroots activists late last week after Paul Pelosi was released from the hospital. “People say to me, ‘What can I do to make you feel better?’ I say: ‘Vote!’” Pelosi told those on the call. Her voice cracked at times as she said of her husband’s recovery, “It’s going to be a long haul.”

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Pelosi officiated the wedding at San Francisco City Hall before guests, who had to show proof of vaccination, made their way to the Getty Mansion, where the celebration continued. The event was also attended by California Gov. Gavin Newsom and San Francisco Mayor London Breed.

“Gavin Newsom, London Breed, Nancy Pelosi all in attendance, hobnobbing with the maskless hordes, at this extremely posh billionaire heiress wedding,” Reason editor Liz Wolfe tweeted. “But hey, let’s make sure San Francisco’s kids mask up in schools.”

“And why were guests able to do this?” Reopen California Schools tweeted Tuesday along with a picture of Pelosi in a large group without a mask. “Maskless indoors when school dances across California are cancelled and kids must keep masks on 7 hours/day including outside at recess in many parts of CA including in SF.”

In October, the city of San Francisco relaxed indoor mask requirements for religious gatherings if everyone in attendance is vaccinated, but only for groups of less than 100 people.

“People in these settings may remove their masks if the employer or host of the gathering can control access to the setting and verify 100% full vaccination of everyone in the setting,” the guidance from the city said. “The employer or host must also ensure proper ventilation, no recent COVID-19 outbreaks, and children under 12 and guests are not present, among other safety measures.”

It is unclear how many guests in total were present at the wedding, but at least 60 people could be seen in the overhead photo that featured Pelosi.

In other photos from the wedding published by Vogue, more than 100 chairs can be seen. The San Francisco Department of Health declined to comment on whether or not any restrictions were violated.

The state of California’s most recent mask update in September says, “Masks are required for unvaccinated people and recommended for everyone in indoor public places, like: retail, restaurants, theaters, family entertainment centers, meetings, State and local government offices that serve the public.”

Regardless of the legality, Reopen California Schools founder Jonathan Zachreson told Fox News Digital that Pelosi celebrating maskless while children are forced to wear masks is “infuriating.”

“Parents have reached a boiling point,” Zachreson said. “They are just so done, and when you see Nancy Pelosi and these other wealthy individuals’ total disregard for the rule and lack of consideration for what our children are going through, it’s so defeating and infuriating.” Zachreson added that children in the San Francisco Bay Area are being instructed to wear their masks between bites while they eat their lunch, and school dances have been canceled.

“You keep imposing these rules, and all of the people in power are not following them, but then they are imposing them on the people who don’t have a voice and who are the least at risk — those are our children,” Zachreson said.

Andrew Mark Miller | Contributed

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans opposing a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package that passed the House have pointed to two transportation projects as examples of pork that would politically benefit Democrats leaders Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi.

Now those projects are out of the bill.

Drew Hammill, a spokesperson for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, said the Senate Parliamentarian has ruled that a subway extension through downtown San Jose did not meet requirements for inclusion in the bill because it is part of a pilot project. The project was set to receive about $141 million under the bill that passed in the House. The parliamentarians rulings are generally respected by the Senate.

Also, the $1.5 million in funding to maintain and operate a bridge connecting Canada and the United States in upstate New York, Schumer’s home state, has been removed by Senate drafters of the bill.

The projects represent a tiny fraction of the overall bill’s cost, but they became popular talking points for Republicans lining up in opposition to the measure, which they says is bloated and unfocused. The subway extension was described as “Speaker Pelosi’s pork subway project” even though it is located 50 miles away from her district.

“Now that the two projects that Republicans misled the public about in the House bill have been removed, it is unclear how Republicans will justify their opposition to the American Rescue Plan, which has strong bipartisan support among the public,” Hammill said.

The Senate bill is expected to largely mirror the House-approved package, with the most glaring divergence the Senate’s dropping of language boosting the federal minimum wage to $15 hourly.

Democrats are using special rules that will let them avoid GOP filibusters that would require them to garner an impossible 60 votes to approve the legislation.

Shortly before Pelosi’s office confirmed that funding for the rail project had been removed, Bernice Alaniz of the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority in California explained that the $141 million slated for the project would help ensure it keeps moving at the planned schedule.

Construction is set to begin in 2022. Local and state sources are putting up three-quarters of the funding for the extension, among the highest match rates for similar projects across the country.

“It really is an essential transit alternative for a highly congested commute corridor and it serves two large universities — San Jose State and Santa Clara University,” Alaniz said. “So I know some of the criticisms are like, ‘oh, it’s for the high-tech oligarchs.’ But we serve transit dependent workers and we serve a large percentage of students going to these colleges.”

The Trump administration boasted of its efforts to fund the rail project when it approved $125 million in federal matching dollars back in 2019.

“This Administration is focused on expediting infrastructure projects,” said then-Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao. She added that the federal investment would help area residents “benefit from these improvements as quickly as possible.”

Last week, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, described funding to operate and maintain the Seaway International Bridge over the St. Lawrence River in upstate New York as part of an “unrelated liberal wish list.” But Schumer said on the Senate floor that the request for funding for the bridge did not come from him and in fact had come from the Trump administration five months ago. He said revenues needed to maintain the bridge had collapsed with no one using the bridge due to the pandemic.

“I learned about it being in the bill when I read about in in the newspaper,” Schumer said.

The coronavirus bill has hundreds of billions of dollars for schools and colleges, COVID-19 vaccines and testing, mass transit systems, renters and small businesses. It also has money for child care, tax breaks for families with children and assistance for states willing to expand Medicaid coverage for low-income residents.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin held an “extensive conversation” Wednesday on a huge COVID-19 rescue package, meeting face to face for the first time in more than a month in a last-ditch effort to seal a tentative accord on an additional round of coronavirus relief.

After a 90-minute meeting in the Capitol, Pelosi issued a statement saying the two would continue to talk. “We found areas where we are seeking further clarification,” she said.

“We made a lot of progress over the last few days. We still don’t have an agreement,” Mnuchin said after meeting with Pelosi and briefing top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell.

At the very least, the positive tone set by Pelosi and Mnuchin represented an improvement over earlier statements. But there is still a considerable gulf between the two sides, McConnell said.

“I’ve seen substantial movement, yes, and certainly the rhetoric has changed,” White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows said.

After initially saying the Democratic-controlled chamber would vote Wednesday night on a $2.2 trillion relief bill — a debate that would have been partisan and possibly unproductive — Pelosi made an about-face and postponed the vote until Thursday in hopes of giving the talks with Mnuchin greater breathing room.

At issue is a long-delayed package that would extend another round of $1,200 direct stimulus payments, restore bonus pandemic jobless benefits, speed aid to schools and extend assistance to airlines, restaurants and other struggling businesses. A landmark $2 trillion relief bill in March passed with sweeping support and is credited with helping the economy through the spring and summer, but worries are mounting that the recovery may sputter without additional relief.

Mnuchin said Wednesday morning that he would tender a new offer resembling a plan released a couple of weeks ago by the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus. That proposal was previously rejected by Pelosi and other top Democrats as inadequate. It totals about $1.5 trillion and would provide additional jobless benefits if unemployment remains unacceptably high.

Pelosi and Mnuchin have ramped up talks in recent days but remain far apart. The two have worked effectively together in the past and were key forces on the “CARES Act” in March, but the bipartisan spirit that drove that measure into law has all but evaporated. Neither side has publicly offered the kind of concessions that would generate tangible momentum.

McConnell said the two sides remain “very, very far apart,” though he spoke before being briefed on the Mnuchin-Pelosi meeting. Aides said the two sides are not close.

Even if Pelosi and Mnuchin were able to reach a tentative agreement on “top line” spending levels, dozens of nettlesome details would need to be worked out. A particularly difficult issue, Pelosi told her colleagues earlier in the day, remains McConnell’s insistence on a liability shield for businesses fearing COVID-related lawsuits after they reopen their doors.

“Let’s see if we can get a compromise agreement with the Speaker, something that works, and then we’ll continue to work with both sides on all the exact language and the policies,” Mnuchin said earlier.

Pelosi’s has sold her latest bill as an attempt to establish a negotiating position that might boost the negotiations. A more skeptical take is that the Speaker is trying to placate party moderates who protested that she has been too inflexible in negotiations and played a role in the collapse of aid talks this summer and earlier this month.

It would revive a $600-per-week pandemic jobless benefit and send a second round of direct payments to most individuals. It would scale back an aid package to state and local governments to a still-huge $436 billion, send a whopping $225 billion to colleges and universities and deliver another round of subsidies to businesses under the Paycheck Protection Program. Airlines would get another $25 billion in aid to prevent a wave of layoffs that are coming this week.

The proposal represents a cutback from a $3.4 billion bill that passed the House in May but remains well above what Senate Republicans are willing to accept. Republicans have endorsed staying in the $650 billion to $1 trillion range.

The specific numbers are also fuzzy because both sides are using offset spending cuts or new tax revenues to pay for part of their respective bills. The Congressional Budget Office has not scored either the most recent Senate GOP measure or the Democratic plan slated for Wednesday night’s vote.

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