House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi says she plans to lead an aggressive opposition against President-elect Donald Trump and a GOP-controlled Congress, naming jobs, veterans and Medicare as the top priorities.
But first, Pelosi, who is being challenged for her leadership position by Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio, is making an attempt to quell disenchantment within the House Democratic Caucus she has run for 14 years.
In a letter to colleagues sent Wednesday, Pelosi, D-Calif., said Democrats must push back against the privatization of the Veterans Affairs health system and "insist on a bill that puts good-paying jobs for workers first — not one that is a corporate tax break disguised as an infrastructure bill."
On Medicare, she said the GOP is "feeling emboldened to shatter the sacred guarantee that has protected generations of seniors."
"If Speaker (Paul) Ryan presses forward with his plans to end Medicare as we know it, we will stand firmly and unified to stop him," she said.
Pelosi's leadership has come under fire from her opponent for the minority leader role, who has said Democrats have been reduced to their smallest congressional minority since 1929. But Pelosi has countered that she has the support of two-thirds of the caucus and helped Democrats regain the majority in 2006 while President George W. Bush was in office.
In an interview with Politico, the Democratic leader said she is the only one who can bring Democrats back to the House majority.
"I don't intend on this phone call, or any conversation with members, to make myself a lame duck," Pelosi told Politico. "What you have to do when you're going into this is to go in with the most strength as possible. That's just the way it is."
