(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump on Thursday called former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi an “evil woman” when asked to comment on her retirement announcement.
“I’m glad she’s retiring,” Trump said as he took reporter questions in the Oval Office during a news conference on reducing the cost of weight loss drugs for Americans.
“I think she did the country a great service by retiring,” Trump continued. “I think she was a tremendous liability for the country. I thought she was an evil woman who did a poor job, who cost the country a lot in damages and in reputation. I thought she was terrible.”
Pelosi became one of Trump’s fiercest critics, and their tensions were well-documented as she led the House in the final years of his first term.
She presided over both of Trump’s impeachments, the first in 2019 over allegations of abuse of power and the second in 2021 after a pro-Trump mob stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
In 2020, she went viral for ripping up a copy of Trump’s State of the Union speech as she stood behind him.
Pelosi did not attend Trump’s inauguration this past January.
More recently, she called Trump a “vile creature” in an interview with CNN.
“The worst thing on the face of the Earth, but anyway,” Pelosi said. When asked to explain why she described him that way, Pelosi said he “does not honor the Constitution.”
Trump, too, has spared no criticism of Pelosi over the years. He regularly targeted her in his 2024 campaign speeches and rallies, calling her a “crooked person,” “evil” and “sick.”
Pelosi, 85, announced early Thursday morning in a video message that she was retiring at the end of her current term in 2027 representing San Francisco in Congress.
The first woman elected speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives and the first woman to lead a major political party in either chamber of Congress, Pelosi will leave Washington after nearly 40 years as one of the most powerful elected women in history.
“I say to my colleagues in the House all the time, no matter what title they have bestowed upon me, speaker, leader, whip, there has been no greater honor for me than to stand on the House floor and say, I speak for the people of San Francisco. I have truly loved serving as your voice,” Pelosi said in her announcement on Thursday.
Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
