Nancy Pelosi’s new book, “The Art of Power: My Story as America’s First Woman Speaker of the House,” is out, and it’s not just another political memoir—it’s a dire warning wrapped in a recounting of her rise from “housewife to House Speaker.” Sure, she covers the usual highlights of her nearly four-decade career in Congress, but the real kicker? Pelosi is here to remind us all that America’s current obsession with political violence is driving public service into the ground.
“The current climate of threats and attacks must stop,” Pelosi writes. “We cannot ask people to serve in public life if the cost is risking the safety of their families and those they love.” Well, no kidding.
For those who’ve followed her storied career, this book is a walk down memory lane, featuring Pelosi as the steely California Democrat who snagged the Speaker’s gavel twice, outlasted seven presidents, and recently managed to nudge Joe Biden into stepping back from the 2024 race against Donald Trump.
But the book’s opening and closing chapters pack a punch, revealing how America’s love affair with violent rhetoric is tearing apart civic life—and Pelosi’s own home life. Pelosi states:
“I don’t know that we will ever feel safe.”
In her memoir, Nancy Pelosi vividly describes the harrowing events of January 6, 2021, when she was forcefully removed from the Speaker’s platform by security amid the chaos of Trump’s supporters storming the Capitol. Pelosi candidly shares her fear and the fleeting thought that she might not survive the day, believing that the rioters had singled her out as their target.
Despite thinking the rioters were after her and that she might die, she wanted to stay and finish certifying the 2020 election. Pelosi said she told the Capitol Police, “I can handle it,” But the Capitol Police weren’t having it. “Their response was curt,” she writes. “‘No, you can’t.'”
Dragged off to Fort McNair, Pelosi found herself huddling with Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer, begging the Pentagon to send in the National Guard to restore order. And where was House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy? According to Pelosi – nowhere to be seen, of course.
Pelosi goes on to recount her concern for Vice President Mike Pence’s safety. She writes about her call with Pence and how she gave him some advice. What advice did Nancy give? According to her book, “Don’t let anybody know where you are.”
“It still took three hours from the time I was dragged out of the House chamber for the Guard to arrive at the Capitol complex,” she writes. “It took about three and a half hours to clear the rioters from the building.” But hey, who’s counting when the mob’s tearing up the place?
Speaking of the mob, when Pelosi finally got a chance to survey the aftermath—shattered glass, splintered wood—she learned that the rioters had “literally defecated on the floors and rugs” in her office. Charming. “What was left behind was pure destruction,” she recounts. Welcome to American politics in the 21st century.
And if you thought the drama ended there, think again. Less than two years after that fiasco, political violence hit closer to home—Pelosi’s own home, to be exact. An intruder broke into her San Francisco residence, attacked her then-82-year-old husband, Paul Pelosi, with a hammer, all while demanding, “Where’s Nancy? Where’s Nancy?”
The whole ordeal is a grim reminder that in today’s America, being a public figure comes with a side of potential assault and battery. Pelosi’s assessment was written well before the assassination attempt on Trump. It arrives after back-to-back congressional shootings of Republican Rep. Steve Scalise and earlier of Democratic former Rep. Gabby Giffords.
So, Pelosi’s book isn’t just a memoir—it’s a cautionary tale wrapped in a history lesson, sprinkled with a giant, flashing neon sign that says: America, we have a problem.