Speaker Emerita Pelosi Receives Biden Institute Award

Newark, Del. – Yesterday, Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi received the 2023 Valerie Biden Owens Women of Power and Purpose Award from the Biden Institute at the University of Delaware.  The award recognized Speaker Emerita Pelosi as "the epitome of a woman leader and an inspiration to young women across the country and around the world."

Before accepting the award, Speaker Emerita Pelosi participated in a moderated conversation with Valerie Biden Owens.  During the conversation, President Joe Biden called in live to congratulate Speaker Emerita Pelosi and praise her leadership.

...

Read coverage from the Newark Post below:

2024 election 'very crucial to our democracy,' Pelosi tells UD audience

[Josh Shannon, 12/1/23]

America is facing a critical juncture next November, and the next generation has an important role to play in shaping that future, House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi told an audience at the University of Delaware's Mitchell Hall on Friday afternoon.

'This next election is very crucial to our democracy,” Pelosi said. “The hope I have is in young people who care about our future, who care about our planet, who care about justice and fairness.”

Pelosi was on campus to accept the Woman of Power and Purpose Award, which has been given by the Biden Institute for the past six years. First elected to Congress in 1987, Pelosi made history in 2007 when she became the first woman elected House speaker. She stepped down from leadership last year but continues to represent San Francisco in Congress.

At Mitchell Hall, Pelosi participated in an hour-long discussion with Valerie Biden Owens, chair of the Biden Institute and sister of President Joe Biden. She also took questions from three pre-selected UD students.

Calling Pelosi “the most consequential speaker in the history of the United States,” Biden Owens asked Pelosi how she managed to pass significant legislation with such a narrow majority in the House, drawing a comparison with the current GOP-led House that has spent the last year mired in disarray.

“I consider myself a master weaver,” Pelosi said. “I sit at that loom and everybody knows that their thread is as important as any other thread there, and our beautiful tapestry that is the Democratic Party in all its diversity, is incomplete unless everyone is represented there.”

She urged anyone thinking about running for office to “know your why,” meaning what is motivating them to enter public service.

“My 'why' was the one in five children in America that live in poverty,” she said. “That's what motivated me to volunteer and then run.”

However, she acknowledged that politics can come with a personal cost, something she experienced first-hand last year when her husband was attacked with a hammer inside their home by a man who was intending to hold Speaker Pelosi hostage and “break her kneecaps.”

“This is a rough business. This is not for the faint of heart. The minute you are in the arena, you are a target,” Pelosi said. “They made me a target. You know why, because I was effective.”
 
She spoke about being in the House chamber on Jan. 6, 2021, when the Capitol was attacked by Trump supporters attempting to interfere with the certification of the 2020 presidential election.

“So unbelievable. The Capitol of the United States, the temple of democracy to the world, stormed,” she said. “The Congress of the United States stormed, the constitution of the United States undermined seriously and stormed by these people who were going to hang the vice president and shoot me in the head.”

Pelosi said she has often disagreed with Republican presidents and colleagues on the other side of the aisle, but until recently, never questioned her political opponents' patriotism and commitment to democracy and the constitution.

“That is a question out there now,” she said.

With the 2024 election looming, she highlighted the lyric of the national anthem “gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.”

“Our challenge now is to prove through the night that our flag is still there, with liberty and justice for all,” she said.

Pelosi praised the leadership of President Biden.

“He has so much vision for our country, so much knowledge of the issues and therefore the judgement that goes with it. Such a strategic thinker, a master legislator for decades,” she said. “And in his heart, the most empathy of anyone who's ever been in the White House.”

President Biden returned the favor, calling in to the event live from the White House. He congratulated Pelosi on being honored and surprised his sister with the announcement that the Biden Institute is renaming the Woman of Power and Purpose Award in her honor.

“She's the finest speaker of the House in American history, and she is a loyal, loyal friend,” Biden said of Pelosi.