House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., told Newsmax on Tuesday that should House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., retire this year or lose her speakership by losing the majority in the midterm elections, there will be a ''massive fight'' among party leaders for control.
''I think you're going to see a massive fight within the Democratic conference that they've been needing to have, probably wanting to have, for over 20 years,'' Scalise said on ''Eric Bolling: The Balance.'' ''If you look at their leadership, you know the average age is probably in the low 80s. our average age of our leadership is in the 50s, and so I think there's a next generation, in essence, that's been wanting to change out the leadership for a long, long time.''
Scalise said the Democrats still need Pelosi's fundraising power, generating an estimated $100 million for her party's candidates in each election cycle, making it hard for any opposing party members to take the gavel out of her hands.
''Pelosi raises all their money. She probably raises $100 million every cycle,'' he said. ''And there's nobody close to her. So the first question is who is going to step up and do that.''
Pelosi, who will be 82 on March 26, has been in Congress since 1987, and has represented three different California districts in her career, including two stints as speaker, from 2007 to 2011 and from 2019 to 2023, according to her official webpage.
Pelosi raised speculation on whether this would be her last year in Congress earlier this year when she commented that the almost $2 trillion Build Back Better Act championed by President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats would be a ''culmination'' of her time in public service, The Guardian reported in October.
''I just told members of my leadership that the reconciliation bill was a culmination of my service in Congress because it was about the children,'' Pelosi said in the story.
While she shortly laughed off a reporter's question about a plan to retire saying at the time ''get out of here,'' rumors have continued that this may be her last session.
Scalise said that he believes the party will end up moving to the left after Pelosi leaves Congerss.
''I think they're going to move further to the left, which should wake up everybody in America that thinks there's any moderates left in the Democratic Party,'' he said. ''I mean, Pelosi used to be the bellwether of the left. She's a classic San Francisco liberal. Today she's probably in the middle of their conference philosophically because the socialists have taken over, and so, I do think it's going to be somebody further to the left of Pelosi.''
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