Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) lavished praise on current House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), claiming that he is a “unifier” and more than qualified to take over as Speaker and insisting that Democrats would regain control of the House in 2026.
Pelosi sat down with ABC News anchor Jonathan Karl to discuss her lengthy tenure in the United States House of Representatives — and as the first female House Speaker — on Sunday’s broadcast of “This Week,” as she is set to begin her final year in Congress.
WATCH:
Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi says she thinks the Democrats will re-take the House of Representatives in 2026: “Hakeem Jeffries is ready, he’s eloquent, he’s respected by the members, he is a unifier.” https://t.co/ZnRxKy0sL5 pic.twitter.com/O6RtIf76eh
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) December 28, 2025
“So, if the Democrats win the House back —” Karl began, but Pelosi interrupted.
“No, no — when. When the Democrats win the House back, because we will,” Pelosi insisted.
“How does the next Democratic speaker of the House deal with Donald Trump?” Karl asked. “What would be your advice?”
“Be yourself. Just do your own thing, just be yourself,” Pelosi said. “Hakeem Jeffries is ready, he’s eloquent, he’s respected by the members, he is a unifier …”
“You have no doubt it will be Hakeem Jeffries?” Karl asked.
“No.”
Karl asked whether there were already plans in place going into the second half of Trump’s presidency, specifically whether there were plans for impeachments or investigations — “or do you deal with him and get something done on all the other issues?”
Pelosi argued that it would be “hard to come up with something that [Trump] will sign because of the problem that he is,” and claimed that Trump would “hold up” anything useful that Democrats were able to force through.
But while Jeffries apparently has Pelosi’s full confidence, he has already run into trouble as the Minority Leader in recent weeks.
CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins challenged Jeffries during an interview while Senate Democrats were keeping the government shutdown going, rebuffing his claim that House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) was refusing to speak with him about bringing the shutdown to an end. Within seconds, it was revealed that Johnson and Jeffries had spoken about ending the shutdown — and that Johnson had initiated the conversation — and that Jeffries had written him off because he was not willing to simply give up and let Democrats have what they wanted.
Jeffries also ran into several challenges from CNBC hosts who disputed his claims that Republicans were the ones at fault for the government shutdown and that Democrats were offering reasonable solutions to the potential extension of COVID-era Obamacare subsidies.
During a recent press conference, when asked a question about Dr. Mehmet Oz — who is currently serving in President Donald Trump’s administration as the 17th administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Jeffries trashed the renowned cardio-thoracic surgeon as “woefully unqualified.”
In short order, Fox News anchor John Roberts replied with a fact-check: “@hakeemjeffries just insisted that @DrOz is ‘unqualified.’ Just a quick fact check for the minority leader: Mehmet Oz: Undergraduate degree — Harvard; MD — UPenn; MBA — Wharton School; He was a renowned cardio-thoracic surgeon at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital before taking the leap into TV.”
