WASHINGTON —

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, 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 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 most consequential legislative leaders. Now, at 82, in the face of political loss and personal trauma, she is closing her era.

Pelosi announced Thursday she would not seek a Democratic leadership position in the Congress that convenes in January, when Republicans take control. Pelosi will remain in Congress.

“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, on health care, roads, student debt relief, climate change and more.

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.

“Totally dominant,” Gingrich said of her. “She’s clearly one of the strongest speakers in history. She has shown enormous perseverance and discipline."

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.

Many fellow Democrats, at one point or another, earned her look of icy disapproval, not just the other side.

“Politics is tough,” she said in 2015, “but intraparty? Oh, brother.”

Pelosi prevailed — for nearly 20 years as House Democratic leader including nearly eight as speaker in two 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 silenced Democrats who cheered when the House first passed articles of impeachment against Donald Trump, for Pelosi was a stickler for decorum. But not always.

She ripped her copy of Trump's 2020 State of the Union speech, on the dais behind him, on camera. The theatrical protest raised questions about whether Pelosi, in that moment, had become what she despised in Trump.

“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.”

Republicans pilloried her as “Darth Nancy” back in 2006 and the villainization got uglier, complete with gun imagery, as the years passed.

“She was, she is, the personification of the San Francisco liberal,” Lawrence said. “It was made to order for them."

But "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.”

She would never publicly 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, they found a pair of boxing gloves. Pink ones.

Pelosi honed the art of aiming high, then disappointing one faction of her party or another without losing core support. Rare is the major achievement that was as far left as the party's left wing wanted.

But many are the achievements. She settled for an “Obamacare” bill, for example, that did not give everyone the option of government health insurance, but did, over time, expand access to health care.

She crushed 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.”

Pelosi faced none of the questions about sharpness that dog Biden, 80 on Sunday. She still races around Congress, in high heels, at a pace people half her age can find hard to match.

But concern had grown in the ranks about the crowd of older Democratic leaders still in charge.

Leon Panetta, former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, said Pelosi “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.”

Her fundraising prowess was one key to success.

“This is why the Democrats had more money than God," said Republican Rep. Fred Upton of Michigan. "She was magic, and I don’t think she lost a vote.”

AP Congressional Correspondent Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON —

House Republicans passed a resolution that would repeal a Biden administration rule tightening federal regulations on stabilizing braces for firearms, an accessory that has been used in several mass shootings in the U.S. over the last decade.

The resolution passed 219-210 nearly on party lines and after a contentious floor debate where Republicans accused the administration of "executive overreach" and Democrats condemned a bill they said would "help kill people." Two Democrats voted in support and two Republicans voted against it.

Video above: Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra appears for a House hearing on Capitol Hill and called gun violence a health care crisis in the U.S.

The resolution, which was introduced by Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., will now go to the Senate, which could take up the measure as soon as this week. Should it pass, President Joe Biden has promised a veto. Overriding a presidential veto would require two-thirds majorities in the House and Senate.

The new rule issued by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in January treats guns with the accessories like short-barreled rifles, a weapon that is like a sawed-off shotgun and has been heavily regulated since the 1930s.

The regulation, which went into effect June 1, was one of several steps Biden announced in 2021 after a man using a stabilizing brace killed 10 people at a grocery store in Boulder, Colorado. A stabilizing brace was also used in a shooting in Dayton, Ohio, that left nine people dead in 2019 and most recently in a school shooting in Nashville, Tennessee.

Stabilizing braces transform a pistol into a weapon that's powerful and easy to conceal, Attorney General Merrick Garland said when he announced the rule. Originally developed for disabled veterans, gun-control groups have said the accessories have became a loophole exploited by gunmakers to make weapons more deadly.

Since taking effect earlier this month, the rule requires anyone who has a gun with an arm-stabilizing brace to register the weapon with the federal government and pay a fee, or remove the brace from their weapons.

Republicans employed the Congressional Review Act, which allows Congress to undo recently enacted executive branch regulations, to try and nullify the new rule that they claim has turned millions of gun owners into felons.

"This rule doesn't just infringe upon Americans' Second Amendment liberties. It represents a dangerous government overreach by the administration," Clyde said during debate Tuesday. "Congress maintains sole legislative authority, not government agencies, not the executive branch."

Several lawsuits have been filed against the regulations by gun owners and state attorneys general. They say it violates Second Amendment protections by requiring millions of people to alter or register their weapons. In some cases, judges have recently agreed to temporarily block enforcement of the rule for the plaintiffs in a setback for the Biden administration.

House Democrats defended the rule on Tuesday, saying it could save lives.

"How many more mass shootings need to happen, how many more kids need to die before my Republican colleagues pull their heads out of the sand and realize that the NRA money is not worth the damage that's been done to our country," said Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass.

The main sponsor for the measure, Clyde, is a member of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus and the owner of a gun store in his district in Georgia. His proposal to overturn the ATF rule first came to the House Judiciary Committee in late March for markup. But House Republicans postponed debate of the measure after a gunman used a weapon with a stabilizing brace to fatally shoot three children and three adults at an elementary school in Nashville, Tennessee.

Last week, Clyde claimed GOP leadership had blocked his resolution from reaching the floor as retribution for his no vote on a bipartisan agreement to lift the debt ceiling, which leaders denied.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said he and Rep. Tom Emmer, the GOP's chief vote-counter, had been working intensely to ensure enough support to pass the legislation in the narrowly divided House.

"We've been moving people every week on this bill," Scalise said. "It has not been easy."

When President Joe Biden delivers his first State of the Union address Tuesday night, he'll set out to reassure anxious Americans the state of the union is strong.

He'll give the much-anticipated speech amid multiple crises and to a critical public, with hopes of resetting his presidency after a difficult first year in the White House. Polls show only a quarter of

Americans believe the country is on the right track. Biden's own approval rating is underwater, with more disapproving of his job as president than approving.

So expect him to empathize with the public's discontent, while simultaneously shining a spotlight on his successes, touting the 6.6 million jobs created, the waning coronavirus infections amid vaccinations and therapeutics, and the passage of a bipartisan infrastructure bill that eluded his predecessors.

President Biden is also expected to continue to push his stalled domestic spending agenda, unveil his strategies for tackling inflation and crime, and honor his selection of Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman to be nominated to the Supreme Court.

He will deliver his address amid the biggest global test of his presidency, underscoring what the Ukraine crisis could mean for Americans, while hailing the unity of U.S. alliances as the world confronts dangerous Russian aggression.

With November's high-stakes midterm elections just months away, Democrats are hoping the State of the Union address provides a much-needed boost to Biden's struggling presidency.

Newsy is the nation’s only free 24/7 national news network. You can find Newsy using your TV’s digital antenna or stream for free. See all the ways you can watch Newsy here. 

A son of the Rev. Jesse Jackson is seeking the Democratic nomination for the Chicago-area congressional seat held by Bobby Rush, who is retiring.Jonathan Jackson on Friday announced his intentions to replace Rush in Illinois' 1st District, the Chicago Tribune reported.Jackson, 56, owns a construction business and is a leader in his father's Rainbow/PUSH Coalition. He said in a statement that he would focus on job creation and expanding access to health care and day care.About a dozen people have filed as candidates for the redrawn congressional district which stretches from Chicago's South Side and southwest suburbs toward Kankakee. They include Chicago Alderman Pat Dowell, state Sen. Jacqueline Collins and Chicago and Cook County workforce development chief Karin Norington-Reaves, according to the newspaper.Rush announced earlier this month that he would not seek a 16th term in the U.S. House. The former Black Panther first won election in 1992.

Democrats, stung by a series of election-year failures to deliver legislative wins for their most loyal voters, hope they'll be buoyed by the prospect that President Joe Biden will name the first Black woman to serve on the Supreme Court.

Justice Stephen Breyer's pending retirement couldn't have come at a better time for a Democratic Party reeling from the collapse of Biden's legislative agenda last week.

Seeing Biden's campaign pledge to appoint the first Black woman to the Supreme Court fulfilled, Democrats hope they will be able to energize a dejected base, particularly Black voters whose support will be crucial in the November midterm elections.

Among the names being circulated as potential nominees are California Supreme Court Justice Leondra Kruger, U.S. Circuit Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, prominent civil rights lawyer Sherrilyn Ifill and U.S. District Judge Michelle Childs — whom Biden has nominated to be an appeals court judge.

Replacing Breyer won't ultimately change the court's 6-3 conservative majority, which has stymied Biden on major priorities including his recent vaccine and testing mandate for large businesses.

If every Senate Republican unites to oppose Biden's nominee, the president would need to secure support from every Democrat in the chamber. That could potentially revive recent fights in which moderate Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona bucked the party and defeated its priorities.

In a letter made public Thursday, Breyer said he plans to retire when the court goes into recess this summer. He added that he hopes his replacement is nominated and confirmed by that time.

Biden said Thursday he plans to name a nominee by the end of next month.

This story was originally published by Newsy. Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

---

Trending stories at Newsy.com

President Joe Biden praised the Senate on Friday for edging the bipartisan infrastructure plan closer to passage, ahead of a key vote on the $1 trillion package.

As the president spoke from the White House, he compared the “historic investment” to building the transcontinental railroad or the interstate highway system — lofty themes he has touched on before as he nudges Congress along.

"It will enable us not only to build back, but to build back better than before the economic crisis hit," he said. "I know that body will move toward establishing the framework for the remainder of my build back better agenda."

The president’s note of encouragement offers a reset for lawmakers after frustrations mounted and tempers flared overnight as the Senate stalled out, unable to expedite the package to completion.

SEE MORE: What's In The Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill?

It’s nearing decision time for Congress, and particularly the Senate, to make gains on the president’s infrastructure priorities — first with the bipartisan bill that’s on track for passage as soon as this weekend, and quickly followed by Democrats' more sweeping $3.5 trillion budget blueprint they plan to shoulder on their own.

Called the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the thick bill is a first part of President Biden’s infrastructure agenda and would inject billions of new spending on roads, bridges, waterworks, broadband and other projects to virtually every corner of the nation. 

If approved by the Senate, it would next go to the House. A procedural vote on the package is set for Saturday.

Additional reporting by the Associated Press.

This story was originally reported by Jay Strubberg on Newsy.com

The Democratic-led House, with the backing of President Joe Biden, is expected to approve legislation to repeal the 2002 authorization for use of military force in Iraq, a step supporters say is necessary to constrain presidential war powers even though it is unlikely to affect U.S. military operations around the world.

A vote on Thursday would come one day after Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said he intends to bring repeal legislation to the Senate floor this year.

“The Iraq War has been over for nearly a decade,” Schumer said. “The authorization passed in 2002 is no longer necessary in 2021.”

The White House said in a statement that it supports the House bill and stressed that no ongoing military activities are reliant upon the 2002 authorization.

Related video: Schumer: Juneteenth holiday marks slavery legacy

The growing momentum behind the repeal measure follows years of debate over whether Congress has ceded too much of its war-making authority to the White House. Many lawmakers, particularly Democrats, say passage of the 2002 authorization, or AUMF, was a mistake, and some Republicans agree the authority should be taken off the books. Some lawmakers say the 2001 resolution to fight terrorism, passed after the 9/11 attacks, should be reexamined as well.

“Once we pass a repeal of the 2002 AUMF, we must keep up our fight to repeal the 2001 AUMF so that no future president has the unilateral power to plunge us into endless wars," said the House bill's sponsor, Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif.

Schumer said he wanted to be clear that legislation terminating the use of force in Iraq does not mean the U.S. is abandoning the country and the shared fight against the Islamic State group. He said the measure would eliminate the possibility of a future administration “reaching backing into the legal dustbin to use it as a justification for military adventurism.”

He cited the Washington-directed drone strike that killed Iranian Gen. Qassim Soleimani in January 2020 as an example.

The Trump administration said Soleimani was plotting a series of attacks that endangered many American troops and officials across the Middle East. The national security adviser at the time, Robert O’Brien, told reporters that President Donald Trump exercised America’s right to self-defense and that the strike was a fully authorized action under the 2002 authorization to use military force.

“There is no good reason to allow this legal authority to persist in case another reckless commander in chief tries the same trick in the future,” Schumer said.

Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Wednesday in a joint statement with Sens. Tim Kaine, D-Va., and Todd Young, R-Ind., that the committee would take up legislation to repeal not only the 2002 authorization, but also the 1991 authorization for use of force in Iraq, which remains on the books.

The 1991 authorization gave President George H.W. Bush the authority to use force against Iraq to enforce a series of U.N. Security Council resolutions passed in response to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. The 2002 authorization was directed against the Saddam Hussein regime as “necessary and appropriate” to “defend U.S. national security against the continuing threat posed by Iraq” and to “enforce all relevant Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq.”

“Repealing the 1991 and 2002 AUMFs will also send a clear diplomatic signal that the United States is no longer an adversary of Iraq, but a partner," Young said.

The Senate and House would have to work out any differences in their bills and vote on a final product before it can go to Biden's desk to be signed into law.

In the end, legislation terminating the 2002 authorization will need 60 votes in an evenly divided Senate to overcome any procedural hurdles. Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he opposes the effort to terminate the authorization.

“We used it to get Soleimani and there might be another Soleimani out there," Inhofe said.

Republican Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas will speak against the House bill Thursday. He said a serious reform effort, “which we all agree is needed," would have included discussions with national security leaders and a replacement to address the evolving war on terrorism.

“Democrats are playing politics with national security in an effort to taint one of President Trump’s biggest national security successes," said McCaul, the lead Republican on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.

Republican Representative Liz Cheney faces opposition from within her own party Wednesday, as party leaders are lining up behind her possible replacement on House leadership.

Former President Donald Trump was the latest to show support for New York Representative Elise Stefanik, posting on his website his "complete and total endorsement" of her.

Cheney is third-ranking in the Republican leadership in the House. Second-ranking House GOP leader Steve Scalise also backed Stefanik earlier in the day.

Calls for Cheney's removal have grown after her criticism of former President Trump. She blamed him for the Capitol riots and voted to impeach him.

On Wednesday, Cheney wrote an Op-Ed for the Washington Post, in which she said that the Republican Party is "at a turning point" and they must choose if they want "truth and fidelity to the Constitution."

She also asked that her fellow Republicans support the ongoing investigation by the Justice Department into the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, as well as a separate, bipartisan congressional commission into the event.

News of the op-ed comes as a secret ballot vote among House Republicans to replace Cheney could come as early as next week.