House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty
From the opening scene of the new documentaryPelosi in the House, the theme is clear:Nancy Pelosi, who recently announced she wouldstep down as the Democratic House leader, is always on the move.
Her high heels clacking across the floors of the Capitol, Pelosi — who broke the glass ceiling as the first female speaker of the House — is documented as she does everything from overseeing an impeachment to responding to criticism from protesters to taking calls aboutDonald Trumpin the middle of the night.
Alexandra is the youngest of Nancy andPaul Pelosi’s five children and a prolific filmmaker who has previously produced documentaries about the political rise ofGeorge W. Bushand homelessness in America.
ForPelosi in the House, she profiled her mother, who first became speaker of the House — a role that would eventually define her political career and further carve a path for women in congressional leadership — in 2007 and assumed the position again in 2019.
The film charts the more recent years in the speaker’s political career, from overseeing two Trump impeachments to seeing the devastation wrought in her office afterTrump supporters broke in and ransacked the Capitol(during which, as detailed in the film, some of her staffers hid beneath a table in a locked closet for more than two hours).
Pro-Trump rioters inside Nancy Pelosi’s office.SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty
The later events of that day — when a mob of Trump’s supporters breached the U.S. Capitol in what became a deadly scene, temporarily halting the counting of electoral ballots forJoe Bidenand forcing the evacuation of lawmakers including Pelosi — also prove central to the film.
Arriving at the Capitol on the morning of Jan. 6, Pelosi is shown participating in a virtual meeting with the Democratic caucus and offering a prayer that the day will be “an epiphany for the American people” — a somewhat foreboding moment when watched in hindsight.
Later, as the speaker watches the news from her office, Trump can be seen urging his supporters to “walk down to the Capitol” while lawmakers certify Biden’s election.
“Tell him if he comes here we’re going to the White House,” Pelosi says.
As the day unfolds, the speaker never breaks her composure, huddling with other congressional leaders as she gets updates on the unfolding situation, making calls to ensure the National Guard is en route to the scene, and deftly tearing into a piece of beef jerky with her teeth while on the phone with Pence.
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While that attack isn’t touched on in the film, Pelosi’s words in some of the final scenes make it clear that she understands her role and the risks that come with it.
“Being speaker makes you a target — a target of misinformation, a target of mockery and sometimes a target of violence,” she says. “This is not for the faint of heart.”
Pelosi in the Houseis now streaming on HBO Max.
source: people.com
