NANCY SMASH!

Aka Individual 1. https://t.co/ZuaNyhN17p

— KAMALA LA LA LA ???? (@KamalaNation) December 23, 2022

"The best advice I ever had, that I extend to you is, be yourself. You're the only person in the history of the world who is you," Pelosi said when asked what advice she has for women. "It's okay to assert yourself, to have confidence." https://t.co/Sl1gmn5qpm

— Marianna Sotomayor (@MariannaReports) December 22, 2022

Power, freedom and the ways in which the former could most effectively be wielded to achieve the latter were very much on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s mind Thursday morning…

Zelensky’s speech was part of “a momentous week for our democracy,” Pelosi declared Thursday in her final news conference as speaker. It had also reminded her of another moment from decades ago, when Winston Churchill, prime minister of the United Kingdom, spoke to Congress in 1941, as World War II was underway. In the audience was Pelosi’s father, Thomas D’Alesandro Jr., then a young congressman from Maryland. Pelosi herself was a toddler at the time.

“It always was a source of pride to me that my father was there that day and now a source of pride that I could be there to hear another heroic leader of … a country at war, come ask for help,” Pelosi said. “When Winston Churchill came … he said, ‘We are doing the noblest task in the world, not only defending our hearths and homes, but the cause of freedom in every land.’ So much the theme, so much the common purpose of President Zelensky.”…

In farewell speeches and events, Pelosi has spent the past few weeks emphasizing the importance of defending democracy, turning a lame-duck session of Congress into her swan song of sorts as a foil against former president Donald Trump. She opened her final news conference Thursday thanking reporters, calling them “guardians of democracy,” a sharp contrast to Trump’s attacks on the press.

Her remarks also came just before a final report was set to be released by the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, when a pro-Trump mob stormed the U.S. Capitol seeking to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s electoral win.

“The 117th Congress began with a violent assault on our democracy, and now we hear its conclusions,” Pelosi said. “We have a vital road map, ensuring justice will be done and that this won’t happen again.”…

Pelosi acknowledged that she would be transitioning from a role that comes with “awesome power” to one with still “strong,” if subtler influence, particularly on women who might want to run for office. Pelosi recalled how, when she arrived in Congress in 1987, there were only 23 women in the House out of 435 lawmakers.

“I want women to have confidence,” Pelosi said. “So sometimes when I act a little more, shall we say, like myself, it’s because I want them to know it’s okay to assert yourself, to have confidence in what you bring to the table, and also to understand your uniqueness.”

Pelosi ended by citing President John F. Kennedy’s inauguration speech, which she said she recalled attending in the “freezing cold.” Most people remember the penultimate sentence, she said, recalling Kennedy’s speech: “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for our country.” But Pelosi said it was the next sentence that struck her: “Ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.”

She has told Biden that he has fulfilled in so many ways what Kennedy was signaling in his ability to rally international support for Ukraine.

“Working together with all of the countries to come together to support Ukraine, not by dictating what we think is the way to go, but through listening, working together so that everybody felt committed to a plan for the freedom of mankind,” Pelosi said. “And that’s how I tie being there as my father’s daughter at the inauguration to what happened this week and what our responsibilities are later.”

Slava Ukraini! pic.twitter.com/qFrO25ZocH

— Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) December 22, 2022