Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) announced Friday she will retire from Congress at the end of the term in January 2027, putting a bookmark on a nearly four-decade, history-making tenure in the House.
“With a grateful heart, I look forward to my final year of service as your proud representative,” Pelosi said in a video on social media, addressing her constituents in San Francisco.
A two-time House Speaker and the only woman to hold the role in American history, Pelosi’s career was defined by the shepherding of major legislation under former Presidents Obama and Biden and vocal opposition to former President George W. Bush and President Trump.
Here are five memorable moments from Pelosi’s time in Congress.
Tiananmen Square visit (1991)
Two years after protests and a subsequent government crackdown occurred in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, Pelosi accompanied then-Reps. Ben Jones (D-Ga.) and John Miller (R-Wa.) to the Chinese capital.
During their trip, the trio held a banner that said, in English and Mandarin, “To those who died for democracy in China” in the square.
Chinese authorities attempted to detain the lawmakers when they unfolded the banner, with seven journalists and cameramen detained for over an hour.
“We’ve been told now for two days [by Chinese officials that there is no prohibition on freedom of speech in China,” Pelosi said after the incident, according to The Baltimore Sun. “This does not conform to what we were told.”
Shout out from Bush during State of the Union (2007)
In the 2006 midterms, Democrats captured a majority in the House for the first time in over a decade. Pelosi, the Democratic leader since 2003, became the first female Speaker in U.S. history.
Bush, during his State of the Union address in January 2007, acknowledged the milestone.
“Tonight I have the high privilege and distinct honor of my own, as the first president to begin the State of the Union message with these words: Madam Speaker,” he said.
The remarks were followed by a roughly 30-second standing ovation, including from former Vice President Dick Cheney, as Pelosi grinned in approval.
Referencing Pelosi’s late father, former Rep. Thomas D’Alesandro Jr. (D-Md.), Bush said that while D’Alesandro saw former Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Truman deliver their State of the Union addresses, “nothing could compare with the sight of his only daughter, Nancy, presiding tonight as Speaker of the House of Representatives.”
Walks out of meeting with Trump at the White House (2019)
Pelosi, months into her second tenure as Speaker, joined Democratic leaders for a meeting at the White House with Trump on developments in Syria.
Less than an hour after entering the West Wing, Pelosi and her colleagues left. She told reporters after that Trump “immediately started off by saying that we asked for the meeting, which we did not.”
The meeting occurred after House Democrats, led by Pelosi, launched an impeachment inquiry into Trump over allegations he used military aid as leverage in asking Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate Biden, his eventual 2020 election opponent.
Hours after the meeting, Trump posted a photo of he and Pelosi arguing to the social platform X. In the photo, Pelosi is standing up and pointing at the president, surrounded by almost exclusively male Democratic and Republican lawmakers and Cabinet officials looking on.
Trump said the photo showed “Nervous Nancy’s unhinged meltdown!”
Pelosi said, “I pray for the president all the time and I tell him that. I pray for his safety and that of his family. Now we have to pray for his health, because this was a very serious meltdown on the part of the president.”
Rips up Trump’s State of the Union address (2020)
After Trump’s final State of the Union address of his first term, Pelosi stood up, ripped pages of the address in half and placed them on the dais.
While leaving the Capitol that night, Pelosi called the speech “a manifesto of mistruths.” Trump’s remarks came less than two months after he was impeached by the Democratic-controlled House.
According to a 2024 biography of Pelosi written by USA Today’s Susan Page, Pelosi felt “liberated” when she ripped up the speech.
Days later, Trump called the move “very illegal,” despite no clear legal evidence indicating so.
Nudges Biden to drop reelection bid (2024)
In the early weeks after Biden’s halting debate performance against Trump in June 2024, Democratic officials mostly hesitated to publicly call for the then-president to end his reelection bid.
On July 10 of last year, though, Pelosi declined to back the then-president’s campaign.
“It’s up to the president to decide if he is going to run,” she said on MSNBC. “We’re all encouraging him to make that decision, because time is running short.
After that interview, more Democratic lawmakers called on Biden to drop out. On July 21, Biden did so, with former Vice President Kamala Harris receiving Pelosi’s endorsement en route to securing the Democratic nomination.
Harris went on to lose to Trump in the November election.
