House of Representatives

Subterms

    More stories

    • 138 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      US House clashes over Harris’s role in 2021 Afghanistan troop withdrawal

      by

      Partisan divisions over the chaotic 2021 pullout of western forces from Afghanistan have burst into the open ahead of Tuesday’s presidential debate in Philadelphia after a Republican-led congressional report attempted to implicate Kamala Harris in the episode.A 250-page report from the House of Representatives’ foreign affairs committee castigated the Biden administration for failing to anticipate the Taliban’s rapid takeover and neglecting to prepare for the orderly departure of non-combatant personnel.The decision led to a shambolic evacuation effort and numerous American civilians and US-allied Afghans being left stranded as the country fell to hardline Islamist forces that America and its Nato allies had spent 20 years trying to defeat.The report, written by the committee’s Republican chairman, Michael McCaul, zeroes in on the supposed role played by the US vice-president – mentioning her name 251 times, although no evidence has emerged that she was directly involved in the decisions leading to one of the most damaging foreign policy chapters of Joe Biden’s presidency.By contrast, a 115-page interim report issued by McCaul on the committee’s investigation on 2022 name-checked Harris just twice.Democrats seized on the contrast, accusing McCaul of inflating Harris’s part in the incident simply because she had replaced Biden as the party’s presidential nominee.“Vice President Kamala Harris was the last person in the room when President Biden made the decision to withdraw all US forces from Afghanistan; a fact she boasted about shortly after President Biden issued his go-to-zero order,” states the latest report, titled Wilful Blindness: An assessment of the Biden-Harris administration’s withdrawal from Afghanistan and the chaos that followed.The report’s front page carries a picture of Harris prominently displayed below that of Biden, and above an image of Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, who played a more prominent role in the withdrawal.“Despite warnings against withdrawing by senior leaders, Vice President Harris’ aide disclosed the vice president ‘strongly supported’ President Biden’s decision,” McCaul’s report goes on. “President Biden’s former Chief of Staff Ron Klain affirmed Vice President Harris was entrenched in the president’s Afghanistan policy.”Democrats accused the Republicans of trying to exploit the withdrawal for election purposes while overlooking the fact that the party’s presidential nominee, Donald Trump, took the original decision to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan when he was president.“Republicans now claim [Harris] was the architect of the US withdrawal though she is referenced only three times in 3,288 pages of the Committee’s interview transcripts,” wrote Gregory Meeks, the Democrats’ ranking member on the committee in a 59-page rebuttal to McCaul’s report.Harris’s alleged role in the withdrawal seems likely to arise when she meets Trump for their only scheduled televised debate in Philadelphia on Tuesday.Sharon Yan, a spokesperson for the White House national security council, said the the report was “based on cherry-picked facts, inaccurate characterizations and pre-existing biases”.She added: “Ending our longest war was the right thing to do and our nation is stronger today as a result.”Harris’s campaign has tried to promote her role in Biden’s foreign policy decisions since she replaced at the top of the Democratic ticket. But she has said little about the Afghan withdrawal. The House report notes that she was on a trip to Singapore and Vietnam at the time and publicly pledged that the administration would protect Afghan women and children.It concludes: “Her promise has clearly not been fulfilled.”Democrats’ accusation of using the Afghan pull-out for campaign purposes echoes criticisms of Trump’s now notorious visit to Arlington national cemetery last month to mark the third anniversary of the event.The former US president’s campaign was rebuked by the US army after its staffers reportedly became embroiled in a confrontation with a cemetery worker when she tried to enforce rules against filming and photographing in a section reserved for service members killed in the Afghan and Iraqi conflicts.Pictures and footage subsequently emerged of Trump posing at the graveside of personnel killed in a suicide bombing at Abbey Gate, near Kabul airport – which resulted in the deaths of 13 US personnel and roughly 170 Afghans. Trump denied that his visit was a campaign event, pointing out that he had been invited by families of the fallen servicemen. More

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Republican-led House panel subpoenas Tim Walz over $250m Covid relief fraud

      by

      A Republican-led US House committee sent a subpoena to Minnesota’s governor, Tim Walz, seeking documents and communications related to a vast fraud scheme conducted by a non-profit that used pandemic relief funds meant for feeding kids.NBC News first reported the subpoenas, which were sent to Walz; Minnesota’s commissioner of education, Willie Jett; the US agriculture secretary, Tom Vilsack; and the agriculture inspector general, Phyllis Fong.The US House committee on education and the workforce wrote to Walz, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, to say it had been investigating the US Department of Agriculture and the Minnesota department of education’s oversight of federal child nutrition programs and Feeding Our Future, the group that is alleged to have stolen more than $250m in pandemic funds.The subpoena does not seek an in-person appearance from Walz before the committee. It sets an 18 September deadline for turning over documents.Five of the people involved in the scheme were convicted for their roles earlier this year in a trial that included an attempt to bribe a juror with a bag full of $120,000 in cash left at her home. In total, 70 people have been charged in relation to the scheme.Walz’s increased prominence in national politics has brought fresh scrutiny of his role as Minnesota’s top executive and whether the state education department, which is under his purview, should have caught the fraud.The committee’s Republican chairwoman, Virginia Foxx, wrote to Walz: “You are well aware of the multimillion-dollar fraud that has occurred under your tenure as governor.”A spokesperson for Walz said the Feeding our Future case was “an appalling abuse of a federal Covid-era program”.“The state department of education worked diligently to stop the fraud and we’re grateful to the FBI for working with the Department of Education to arrest and charge the individuals involved,” the spokesperson said.Walz has previously defended the department but acknowledged there were improvements to be made in oversight, after a state audit found the department’s lacking oversight “created opportunities for fraud”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“There’s not a single state employee that was implicated in doing anything that was illegal. They simply didn’t do as much due diligence as they should’ve,” Walz said after the audit report.Foxx claimed the committee had made voluntary requests to Minnesota’s education department for documents but “has been unable to obtain substantive responsive materials”.Walz’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. More

    • 150 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      George Santos Is Expected to Plead Guilty, People Close to Case Say

      by

      Mr. Santos could change his mind, but witnesses in his campaign fraud case were told by federal prosecutors that he intends to plead guilty on Monday.George Santos, the former Republican congressman from New York undone by a mind-bending array of biographical lies and moneymaking schemes, has told prosecutors that he intends to plead guilty and avoid a federal trial that was expected to begin next month, according to two lawyers involved in the case and two other people with knowledge of the matter.The plea, which is expected to occur on Monday in Federal District Court in Central Islip, N.Y., would spare Mr. Santos from a trial that almost certainly would have been a colorful spectacle. Mr. Santos, whose trial on 23 felony charges was scheduled to begin on Sept. 9, could still change his mind. But this week, two lawyers representing multiple witnesses in the case were told by federal prosecutors that Mr. Santos had decided to plead guilty.Two others with knowledge of the plans confirmed that he intends to plead guilty on Monday; one of the people said Mr. Santos is expected to give a statement in court acknowledging his crimes. The terms of his expected guilty plea and what sentence he might face were not clear.Lies, Charges and Questions Left in the George Santos ScandalGeorge Santos, who was expelled from Congress in 2023, has told so many stories they can be hard to keep straight. We cataloged them, including major questions about his personal finances and his campaign fund-raising and spending.Public court records show that an in-person hearing has been scheduled for Monday afternoon at the request of prosecutors and Mr. Santos’s lawyers. The records did not explain the purpose of the hearing. Mr. Santos and one of his lawyers, Joseph Murray, did not respond to requests for comment.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 163 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      George Santos expected to plead guilty in fraud case on Monday – reports

      by

      The disgraced former New York Republican congressman George Santos is expected to plead guilty on Monday in a deal with prosecutors on charges that he defrauded his campaign during his 2022 midterm elections, according to multiple reports.Hints of a plea agreement came on Friday ahead of Santos’s federal criminal trial, which was set to start early next month. Prosecutors and defense attorneys suddenly scheduled a hearing without explicitly saying why.Multiple donors to Santos’s previous election campaign told Talking Points Memo that they had been informed that a plea deal would be announced on Monday. TPM was the first outlet to report on alleged fraud by Santos involving the diversion of campaign funds for personal spending.Santos’s attorney, Joe Murray, and the US attorney for the eastern district of New York, the federal prosecuting body with jurisdiction over the case, did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Saturday.The former Republican congressman, a political unknown who flipped a key New York Democratic district stronghold in 2022, drew headlines after it was revealed that much of his résumé had been elaborately fabricated.Despite this, Republican leadership in the House spent months standing by him. He was finally expelled in December 2023, less than a year after being sworn in to Congress. The Democrat Tom Suozzi won the special election to fill the vacated seat.Santos, 36, a first-generation Brazilian American, had run as a member of a “new generation of Republican leadership” and as the “full embodiment of the American dream”.He falsely claimed to have graduated from a New York college, worked at a major New York bank and run a pet rescue charity, and that his family owned a portfolio of 13 properties and that his mother had been at the World Trade Center when it was attacked by hijackers on 11 September 2001.The holes in Santos’s story soon came to wide attention and he was ultimately indicted on 23 charges that included allegations of lying to Congress and spending campaign funds on luxuries including trips to casinos, Ferragamo shoes, Botox treatments and OnlyFans payments. He had pleaded not guilty and seemed to revel in proclaiming his innocence to a scrum of reporters outside court.A scathing House ethics committee report on Santos’s conduct said he “was frequently in debt, had an abysmal credit score, and relied on an ever-growing wallet of high-interest credit cards to fund his luxury spending habits” and had “made over $240,000 cash withdrawals for unknown purposes”.After leaving Congress, Santos began a sideline career as a Cameo performer, posting greetings to paying customers. It was success, at least briefly, with Santos earning more than he had as a US congressman.He also attempted a congressional comeback, this time as an independent candidate, but that effort quickly fizzled.If a plea deal emerges next week, it will follow a similar agreement with Santos’s campaign fundraiser, Sam Miele, who pleaded guilty to federal fraud charges last year, and that of his former campaign treasurer Nancy Marks. More

    • 150 Shares119 Views

      in US Politics

      Five things we learned from our reporting on the US’s pro-Israel lobby

      by

      The progressive US representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota easily overcame a primary challenge on Tuesday, delivering a major victory for progressives after a primary season marked by mixed success amid an onslaught of spending from pro-Israel lobby groups.The progressive “Squad” in the House were early to embrace calls for a ceasefire in Gaza and criticize Israel’s offensive for its toll on civilians, drawing the ire of groups like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac). Omar and Summer Lee of Pennsylvania were still able to easily cruise to victory in their primaries, but pro-Israel groups successfully picked off its two biggest Squad targets of this primary season: Jamaal Bowman of New York and Cori Bush of Missouri.The Guardian followed key congressional races affected by Aipac and similar groups for the past few months. With the primaries coming to a close, here’s what we learned about the pro-Israel lobby’s efforts this year.1Aipac is spending more as public opinion on Israel shiftsThe $23m Aipac pumped into defeating just two members of Congress can be seen as evidence of the depth of the pro-Israel lobby’s concern that public opinion is shifting away from decades of largely unquestioning support for Israel as the US’s “greatest ally”, particularly among young Americans. These shifts in public opinion threaten the claims of a bipartisan consensus on support for Israel in Congress.Aipac’s creation of the United Democracy Project (UDP) political action committee in 2021 to directly intervene in election campaigns for the first time was in part a response to opinion polls showing that even before the present war in Gaza, half of Democrats wanted the US to give more support to Palestinians.The group pledged to spend $100m this election year; it has so far spent more than $90m. Bowman and Bush’s races were the two most expensive House primaries in history, according to the firm AdImpact.Bowman and Bush were elected to Congress on the back of the Black Lives Matter movement, which has focused on reframing the Palestinian cause as a civil rights issue of resistance to Israeli domination. The shift in narrative alarms Aipac, as has the impact of international court rulings against Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories and a growing consensus within international human rights organisations that Israel imposes a form of apartheid on Palestinians.The war in Gaza, where Israel has killed at least 40,000 Palestinians, a majority of them civilians, has only added to the challenges now facing the pro-Israel lobby, with a third of Democrats saying Biden has not been “tough enough”with Israel.2Pro-Israel groups spent big to pick off vulnerable incumbentsAipac’s UDP spent $14.6m in its campaign to unseat Bowman. The group Democratic Majority for Israel (DMFI) spent another $1m to help George Latimer, the Westchester county executive, win the Democratic nomination.In Bush’s primary, UDP spent $8.6m to promote the campaign of Wesley Bell, a St Louis prosecutor, and DMFI contributed close to $500,000 to the effort.View image in fullscreenThe financial commitment paid off, as both Bowman and Bush went on to lose their primaries. But it’s worth noting that Bowman and Bush were already viewed as more vulnerable than some of their other Squad colleagues at the start of the primary season.Bowman had attracted negative headlines last year for pulling a fire alarm in the Capitol during a crucial vote, an incident that prompted a misdemeanor charge and a formal House censure. Bowman also had to apologize in January for writing some now-deleted blogposts promoting conspiracy theories about the September 11 attacks, and Latimer was helped by redistricting, which brought more of the suburban voters inclined to support him to the district. Meanwhile, the justice department is investigating Bush’s spending on security services, after she married her security guard and kept him on her campaign payroll. View image in fullscreenGroups like UDP and DMFI chose to focus their attention on lawmakers who already had some kind of baggage heading into their primaries.3Pro-Israel groups stayed out of races they deemed unwinnableMany election watchers expected Lee’s primary in Pennsylvania to be the first test of the pro-Israel lobby’s strength against the Squad, but UDP and DMFI chose to stay out of the race.The decision came as somewhat of a surprise, as UDP and DMFI collectively spent nearly $4.4m against Lee when she first ran for Congress in 2022. But the groups opted out of the race this year after Lee spent her first term in Congress building goodwill with her constituents and delivering more than $1.2bn in funding for her district.View image in fullscreenThe Super Pac Moderate Pac, backed by the Republican mega-donor Jeffrey Yass, did get involved in Lee’s race, but it was not enough to prevent her victory. Lee ultimately defeated her opponent, local council member Bhavini Patel, by 21 points.A similar pattern played out with Omar. She beat Don Samuels, a former Minneapolis city council member, by 13 points on Tuesday after pro-Israel groups chose to stay out of the race. The progressive representative Rashida Tlaib, the only Palestinian American member of the House and one of the most vocal ceasefire supporters, did not even draw a primary challenger.In races where they did not think they could win, pro-Israel groups simply opted out altogether.4The pro-Israel lobby’s messaging didn’t focus on the war in GazaAlthough pro-Israel groups targeted pro-ceasefire members, their attack ads generally did not focus on the war in Gaza. That choice was strategic, as polls show that an overwhelming majority of Democrats support calls for a ceasefire.Instead, ads from UDP tried to paint members like Bowman and Bush as uncooperative Democrats sowing discord within the party and more focused on their national profiles than their districts. One UDP attack ad against Bowman specifically called out his votes against the bipartisan infrastructure bill and the debt ceiling agreement, mirroring the group’s later attacks against Bush.View image in fullscreen“Jamaal Bowman has his own agenda and refuses to compromise, even with President Biden,” the ad’s narrator says. “Jamaal Bowman has his own agenda, and it’s hurting New York.”That strategy, powered by millions of dollars in ad spending, paid off.5Battle-tested progressives performed betterOmar knew to expect a significant primary challenge this year because she won her 2022 primary against Samuels by just 2 points. This time around, Omar was prepared. She raised roughly five times as much money as Samuels did, and she deployed ads early as a sort of prebuttal against potential attacks on her voting record.Lee similarly secured the narrowest possible victory in her 2022 primary, winning by less than 1 point. Two years later, her margin of victory in the primary had grown by 20 points.View image in fullscreenBowman and Bush were less tested, however. In 2022, Bowman won his primary by 29 points, although he tellingly secured only 54% of the total vote. Bush easily won her primary in 2022, beating her opponent by 43 points and securing 70% of the total vote.This year, it seems that progressives who experienced tougher primary fights in 2022 were better equipped to defend themselves when needed.But Aipac is not only taking aim at Israel’s most strident critics. The millions of dollars poured into defeating Bush and Bowman are a warning shot to other members of Congress and contenders that vocal criticism of Israel or support for Palestinians may come at a political price.Read more of our coverage:

      Pro-Israel money pours in to unseat progressives in congressional races

      Pro-Israel US groups plan $100m effort to unseat progressives over Gaza

      A progressive congresswoman made history in 2022. Can a billionaire stop
      her re-election?

      Pro-Israel groups target Republican House candidate they deem antisemitic

      Pro-Israel groups have set sights on unseating this progressive lawmaker. Will they succeed?

      Race to unseat New York progressive ‘most expensive House primary ever’

      Pro-Israel Pac pours millions into surprise candidate in Maryland primary

      Pro-Israel group pours millions into unseating New York progressive Jamaal Bowman More

    • 125 Shares119 Views

      in US Politics

      Ilhan Omar, member of the ‘Squad’, wins Minnesota Democratic primary

      by

      Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota has won the state Democratic primary for her seat, according to the Associated Press, in a rematch against Don Samuels that comes two years after she barely eked out a victory against him.With 216 of 217 precincts reporting results, Omar was leading Samuels 56.2%-42.9%, according to Minnesota Secretary of State tallies.“We run the politics of joy,” Omar told supporters in Minneapolis on Tuesday evening. “Because we know it is joyful to fight for your neighbors … We know it is joyful to make sure housing is a human right. We know it is joyful to fight for health care to be a human right. We know it is joyful to want to live in a peaceful and equitable world.”Tuesday’s race was the last in a series of heated primaries for the progressive “Squad” of House Democrats who have been vocal in their criticism of Israel’s war in Gaza. Fellow Squad members Jamaal Bowman of New York and Cori Bush of Missouri were recently defeated by candidates supported by a deluge of pro-Israel spending. Omar faced a lower-key race.The two-term congresswoman became the first woman of color to represent Minnesota in the US House of Representatives in 2019. While in office, she has allied herself with the left wing of the Democratic party, serving as the deputy chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and backing key progressive measures such as the Green New Deal and Medicare for All.Even before the 7 October Hamas attacks and Israel’s ensuing offensive, Omar had established herself as a vocal critic of Israel. She memorably drew criticism in 2019 for quipping that US politicians’ support for Israel was “all about the Benjamins”, in reference to donations from the American Israel Political Affairs Committee (Aipac). The comment drew accusations of antisemitism and she later apologized for it.In the wake of the 7 October attacks, and as Israel escalated its retaliatory war, Omar was among the first in Congress to call for a ceasefire. She has spoken out in support of the university encampments in solidarity with Gaza. Her daughter was suspended from Barnard College for taking part.These together would seem to make Omar a natural target of pro-Israel groups, but Samuels, a former Minneapolis city councilman has not drawn support from Aipac or its affiliated Super Pac, United Democracy Project. In contrast, UDP dropped more than $20m to unseat Bowman and Bush.The lobby groups have not said why they have not gotten involved in the Minnesota primary – but it is possible that Omar just did not provide them the fodder.Despite Aipac’s single-issue focus on Israel, its messaging against other Squad members has not focused on the issue.During Bowman’s race, his opponent George Latimer focused on Bowman’s vote against Joe Biden’s landmark infrastructure bill that numerous progressive lawmakers withheld support from in an attempt to build leverage to secure other progressive provisions. The idea that Bowman and Bush, who also voted against the infrastructure bill, had not played ball with Democrats became a centerpiece of Latimer’s campaign against Bowman and Wesley Bell’s against Bush.In her primary campaign, meanwhile, Omar has emphasized the money that she has been able to direct to her district and even featured Joe Biden in an ad. “Congresswoman Omar, I wanna thank you for being here – you never stop working to level the playing field,” Biden says in the ad.Additionally, Mark Mellman, the director of Democratic Majority for Israel – a pro-Israel group that also weighed in against Bush and Bowman – has cited the “vulnerability” of a candidate as a key factor informing whether the group gets involved in a race. Omar is popular in her district; internal campaign polling recently found her leading Samuels 60% to 33%.Samuels said he was “very disappointed” with his loss.“What I was hoping is that a strong ground game and an attention to the details of folks who felt left out would trump an overwhelming superiority in dollars,” he told the Associated press. “Clearly money matters a little more in politics than I had hoped.”Reuters contributed to this report More

    • 138 Shares109 Views

      in Elections

      Democrats Turn to Their National Security Go-To for Trump Assassination Inquiry

      by

      Representative Jason Crow of Colorado, whom Democrats tapped for impeachment, investigations and tough questioning of President Biden, is their top member of a task force investigating the shooting.Representative Jason Crow, a Colorado Democrat and former Army Ranger, had just ordered his second martini at a bar in Bucharest, Romania, when Representative Nancy Pelosi, the former speaker, called him with an urgent question: How quickly could he get to Ukraine?It was April 2022, weeks after Russia had invaded Ukraine and touched off an international crisis, and two Republican lawmakers had rushed to be the first to travel to the besieged country. Now Ms. Pelosi wanted to quickly arrange her own visit — and she wanted Mr. Crow, whose national security background distinguished him in his party, to come with her.A late-night phone call from Ms. Pelosi to Mr. Crow would have been improbable when he first came to Congress in 2019. Hailing from a competitive district in Colorado, he had run as a centrist and avowed detractor of the liberal Ms. Pelosi, and after he knocked off a Republican incumbent he pledged that he would not vote for her for speaker.But since then, his credentials — including three tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan and a Bronze Star, as well as a law degree and a background in private-sector investigations — have made Mr. Crow a go-to lawmaker for Democratic leaders on difficult national security issues.Ms. Pelosi tapped him in 2019 to manage the first impeachment of President Donald J. Trump. He was part of the whip operation to rally support for legislation to send tens of billions of dollars in aid to Ukraine. He was selected as the top Democrat on a subcommittee investigating the Biden administration’s botched withdrawal from Afghanistan.And last month, he was named the senior Democrat on a bipartisan task force to investigate the attempted assassination of Mr. Trump at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 125 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Pelosi has ‘never been that impressed’ with Biden’s political operation

      by

      Nancy Pelosi has “never been that impressed” with Joe Biden’s “political operation”, the former US House speaker said, discussing a judgment that helped her conclude the president could not beat Donald Trump and should step aside.“They won the White House [in 2020]. Bravo. But my concern was: this ain’t happening, and we have to make a decision for [Biden’s withdrawal] to happen,” Pelosi told the New Yorker, in an interview published on Thursday.On 21 July, in a historic moment, the 81-year-old president finally heeded those who said he was too old to beat Trump and serve a full second term.Stepping aside as the Democratic nominee, Biden endorsed his 59-year-old vice-president, Kamala Harris, a move that transformed the election, placing Trump under pressure.Pelosi was widely reported to have played a key role in the switch.She told the New Yorker: “The president has to make the decision for that to happen. People were calling. I never called one person. I kept true to my word. Any conversation I had, it was just going to be with [Biden]. I never made one call. They said I was burning up the lines, I was talking to Chuck [Schumer, the Democratic Senate majority leader]. I didn’t talk to Chuck at all.“I never called one person, but people were calling me saying that there was a challenge there. So there had to be a change in the leadership of the campaign, or what would come next.”Pelosi said her goal was simple: “That Donald Trump would never set foot in the White House again.”Now 84, Pelosi is in her 19th term in the House. Having been speaker between 2007 and 2011 and 2019 and 2023, she remains vastly influential.Pelosi spoke to the New Yorker to promote her new memoir, The Art of Power. Last week, the Guardian first reported Pelosi’s descriptions of how she grew increasingly concerned about Trump’s mental fitness for office, even before his defeat by Biden and incitement of the January 6 attack on Congress.Pelosi told the New Yorker she hoped her role in ending Biden’s presidency would not destroy her relationship with a man three years younger but elected as a senator in 1972, 14 years before Pelosi won her seat in the House.“I hope so,” she said. “I pray so. I cry so.”She said she had lost sleep over the situation. Asked if she thought Biden was angry with her, she said: “I don’t know. We haven’t had a conversation. But … ”Pelosi said she thought Biden was “in a good state”, praising as “masterful” his handling of a large-scale prisoner swap with Russia which concluded last week.But Biden’s legacy “will go right down the drain if what’s-his-name ever [returns to] the White House”, Pelosi said, adding: “One of the reasons I ran again [in 2022] was to make sure that Donald Trump never stepped foot in the White House again.“He is a danger to our democracy … he’s a danger to the air our children breathe, the water they drink, their safety in terms of gun-violence prevention. Freedom of choice, the size, the timing of your family – all that.”Asked if she had met Trump since her time as speaker, Pelosi said she had not.“Oh, my God, what a horrible thought,” she said. “He knows he’s an impostor. He knows he shouldn’t be president of the United States.” More