Nancy Pelosi pulled one power play that Donald Trump is going to hate
Donald Trump is going to face a familiar foe as he gets set to retake the White House.
But Trump wasn’t prepared for what was coming next.
And Nancy Pelosi pulled one power play that Donald Trump is going to hate.
Nancy Pelosi still pulling the strings for House Democrats
Democrats expected to win back control of the House of Representatives.
That effort failed as Donald Trump led the GOP to a sweeping victory.
And now Nancy Pelosi is trying to position the Democrat Party for a scorched earth battle with Donald Trump over the next two years.
Pelosi’s plot involves supporting challenges to Democrats who by rights of seniority will be the ranking member on their committee.
But Pelosi wants to upend the seniority system to install the most Trump-hating partisans in these positions.
One of the key fights is on the Judiciary Committee where Pelosi wants to replace Jerry Nadler (D-NY) with January 6 Committee member Jamie Raskin (D-MD).
And to show much pull Pelosi still holds the power in the Democrat Party the conference’s putative leader House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) isn’t even weighing in to defend the seniority system he presides over.
“Leader Hakeem Jeffries has great respect for Ranking Member Jerry Nadler and spent 10 productive years serving alongside him on the House Judiciary Committee,” Jeffries spokesperson Andy Eichar said in a statement obtained by Axios.
“By tradition, House Democratic leadership does not get involved in internal caucus races and any suggestion to the contrary is false, speculative and entirely reliant once again on unnamed sources,” Eichar added.
For his part, Nadler saw the writing on the wall and declined to seek the position of ranking member on the House Judiciary Committee.
In his letter announcing his surrender, Nadler wrote that Raskin has “already proven himself to be an exceptional leader and spokesperson for our party’s values.”
“As our country faces the return of Donald Trump, and the renewed threats to our democracy and our way of life that he represents, I am very confident that Jamie would ably lead the Judiciary Committee as we confront this growing danger,” Nadler added.
Pelosi tried not to gloat.
“I just got his letter, I haven’t finished reading it,” Pelosi told reporters when asked about Nadler bowing to her wishes.
“But he knows the territory. He’s been a great leader and he’s greatly appreciated. And now he’s made a decision which we respect,” Pelosi continued.
The last time Nancy Pelosi pulled rank to try and better position the Democrats to fight Donald Trump the party ended up with Kamala Harris as the nominee.
Members of the media worship Pelosi and love to hold her out as some master strategist.
Pelosi held a leadership role in two of the biggest electoral wipeouts in party history – the 2010 Tea Party wave and Donald Trump’s landslide re-election win this November.
