Democrats Are Nostalgic for How Pelosi Handled the Last Big Shutdown

Former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is reportedly considering retirement. As the government shutdown stretches to historic lengths, some Democrats are looking to how she handled the last shutdown — and hoping they can replicate her messaging success.

In 2018, Democratic leaders had to navigate a budget impasse that dragged on for 35 days. With Pelosi at the helm, they got concessions and political points: President Donald Trump ended up dropping his demand to Congress to fund a $5 billion border wall, and the shutdown sank his approval ratings.

James Carville, a longtime Democratic consultant, likened her to a once-in-a-generation “Halley’s Comet” and suggested her combination of experience and political instincts cannot be easily taught or duplicated.

“There’s all kinds of ingredients that go into making that, but these people don’t come along very often in American politics. And then, she was the perfect contrast to Trump,” Carville said. “There’s just some people that, over a period of time, they’re just so much more skilled than other people, and you shouldn’t try to be them, you should try to be you.”

Even three years after she stepped aside as the top Democrat in the House, she remains one of the highest-profile figures in the party, helping Democrats fundraise and campaign. In California, where voters on Tuesday will decide whether to approve new congressional district maps, Pelosi has reportedly played a major role in getting her state’s House Democrats on board and goaded fundraisers into giving more to support the initiative.

Gov. Gavin Newsom showered her with praise for her involvement at a Monday news conference in San Francisco.

“Nancy Pelosi — you know the difference at the end of the day? Some people get it, but they don’t get things done. Some people go off and they talk about the way the world should be, but they don’t do anything to damn manifest it,” Newsom said. “The difference is, Nancy Pelosi doesn’t go out to try to make points. She makes a difference, and we are building that legacy with Proposition 50, so Nancy, thank you for your inspiration.”

Newsom’s talk of Pelosi’s “legacy” could prove prescient soon, as NBC News reported Monday that Democrats are bracing for her to announce her retirement after Tuesday’s election. Pelosi’s office did not respond to a request for an interview or comment on the reports of possible retirement plans.

In 2017, she said she had considered retiring, but decided to stick around after Hillary Clinton lost to Donald Trump in 2016 to protect the Affordable Care Act. By doing so, she became one of the leading Democratic figures to push back against the Trump administration, including ahead of what was the longest shutdown in U.S. history.

“She was extremely compelling, and she knew how to control the narrative, and I don’t think anyone has handled Trump better than Speaker Pelosi,” said Charlotte Clymer, a Democratic strategist. “Speaker Pelosi made it look easy. It’s good that they’re holding the line, that’s the good thing: Leader Schumer and Leader Jeffries are holding the line well here, but the comms have not been great, and part of that has to be communicating to the American people why this is important and getting angry about it.”

The party’s current leaders are reiterating their demands about health care subsidies, but are still left searching for a clear offramp a month into the shutdown, with no hint from the White House or Republicans in Congress that negotiations are possible until the shutdown ends.

“Right now, there’s no reason for Republicans to really negotiate, because Democrats are struggling with their own voters,” said Fred Hicks, an Atlanta-based Democratic strategist.

“(House Minority Leader) Hakeem Jeffries seems to be a beat or two behind every step along the way, and Speaker Pelosi was great at keeping her hand on the pulse and maybe even being a step or two ahead,” Hicks added, pointing to Jeffries’ “tepid endorsement” of New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani as an example of him lagging behind what excites the Democratic base.

Trump’s approval ratings are starting to see dips throughout the shutdown, but Democrats have struggled to control the narrative against the president’s aggressive media tactics. Jeffries’ Oval Office meeting with Trump ahead of the shutdown didn’t gain anything for Democrats — but it gave Trump Truth Social fodder, as Trump was pictured pointing and laughing at Jeffries with “Trump 2028” hats between them. Perhaps better known are the AI-generated videos of Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer that the president posted after the meeting, in which Jeffries wore a superimposed mustache and sombrero.

As the shutdown drags on, Jeffries has said Republicans are “completely and totally uninterested” in negotiating, and has accused the White House and his Republican counterparts of having gone “radio silent.” Jeffries challenged Speaker Mike Johnson to a debate in the shutdown’s first week, which Johnson dismissed as unserious. Weeks later, no such debate has taken place, and Jeffries is stuck reiterating his party’s position on brief phone calls to Republican leaders.

“I speak to Nancy Pelosi regularly,” Jeffries said when asked by NOTUS about her role in navigating shutdown messaging. But what advice from her has he applied to the matter at hand? “Those private conversations will remain private.”

Jeffries’ office did not offer additional comment.

For Pelosi, some of the most memorable images of her time as the top Democrat in the House came during shutdown negotiations. Pelosi’s televised pre-shutdown meeting with Trump led to Trump losing his cool and claiming ownership for the impasse, and ended with memes about her couth fashion statements saturating social media.

“She publicly manhandled that guy, the likes of which I’ve rarely ever seen,” said Jim Manley, a strategist and former senior aide to the late Senate leader Harry Reid. “Hopefully Jeffries and Schumer have happily studied that tape to make sure that they never get in a position where they allow him to outmaneuver them again.”

While strategists and consultants sing Pelosi’s praises on how she handled similar political slumps, Democrats in Congress say her playbook hasn’t come to mind.

Sen. Ruben Gallego, who served for a decade in the House of Representatives, likened a question about how Pelosi talked to the public about previous budget impasses to “asking somebody what they did their freshman year of college when they’re already in grad school.”

“Like, I have zero remembrance of that,” Gallego added.

He wasn’t the only Democrat to downplay the lessons about messaging from the last shutdown.

“I have not talked to her, you know, in terms of what’s going on on the House side, but a lot of us are trying to make sure that we’re raising these issues and be able to engage and stand up to Trump when he’s refusing to negotiate,” Sen. Andy Kim said of Pelosi.

Still, Sen. Adam Schiff, who was a House member from 2001 up until late last year, said that while Pelosi “is super skilled on messaging and focus,” he didn’t “remember the specifics” of how she navigated talking about the impasse.

“This was over, I think, Trump and the wall, right?” Schiff asked. “In that case, Trump very clearly took complete ownership of the shutdown. He still owns it this time, more than ever, because they control everything, but he’s trying to dodge responsibility.”