And then he turned on Pelosi herself. Pelosi had been vilified by Republicans in a failed multi-million-dollar ad campaign to stop her party from winning the House.
The president suggested she faced her own political problems ahead.
“Mr. President, please don’t characterize the strength that I bring to this meeting as the leader of the House Democrats who just won a big victory,” she said.
Pelosi soon after walked out of the White House, her burnt orange winter coat swaying in the December afternoon, a lasting image of her return to power.
“What do you gain by agonizing?” Pelosi said.
The feminist leader Florynce “Flo” Kennedy is said to have popularized the phrase during an earlier era. Pelosi put it to use from the Capitol — and in this week's decisive election over Prop 50 redistricting in California.
“The most important thing is time. It’s the most precious commodity of all. So why are you using your time, agonizing over this?” she said. “We organize.\"
’Treat everyone as a friend, but know who your friends are’ “Darling,” Pelosi recalled the late Rep. Lindy Boggs telling her, ”Don’t make every fight your last fight.”
It’s a life hack Pelosi grafted early on and onto her own approach.
“Everybody is a resource to you,” she said. “You never know where a vote might come from.”
‘E Pluribus Unum’ A founding principal of the nation, “E Pluribus Unum,\" comes from the Latin, “out of many one.”
More recently, Pelosi has drawn on another historical resource, the language from the national anthem.
“This is what I’m telling members now is our goal: We have to prove ‘through the night that our flag is still there,’” she said.
“And I think those things are very much at risk.\"
‘Recreate to recreate’... “Isn’t that interesting, it’s the same word?” Pelosi said. “I made that up myself.”
“Go home and recreate to recreate,” she said, “because you’ve got to be ready for the fight.”
But she added, “I don’t always do it myself.”
... ‘Resting is rusting’ “You cannot tire. You must be there to the end,” she said.
It’s a skill she said she learned from union leaders during negotiations.
But doesn’t that contradict “recreate to recreate”?
“Resting is rusting,\" she said, \"is strictly for me.”