The Untold Truth Of Nancy Pelosi

Nancy Pelosi is one of the most influential (and wealthiest) people in Washington. Throughout her many years in Congress, she's served as house minority leader and Speaker of the House (via Biography). Though she's worked in DC for more than three decades and is currently second in line for the presidency, Pelosi is a fiercely private person. When it comes right down to it, what do most people know about Pelosi? They know she led the impeachment effort against Donald Trump. They know that she has cool sunglasses, loves a flashy coat, and delivers a meme-worthy moment like nobody's business. 

There's so much more to Pelosi than a great wardrobe and sardonic applause, though. She has come a long way since her days in Little Italy. She's gone from housewife to one of the most powerful women in the United States and so much more. So, without further ado, here's everything you need to know about Nancy Pelosi. 

It's safe to assume when you're Nancy Pelosi, you basically never stop working, but even the most powerful woman in D.C. needs to cut loose from time to time. Pelosi likes to retreat to her Napa Valley vineyard, where she grows her own grapes and makes her own wine to blow off steam. After scooping up the property in 2005, Pelosi successfully received permission from the city to operate the winery and host weekly tastings on the property. Interestingly, despite having permission to profit off the property, Pelosi and her husband, Paul, haven't taken advantage of the opportunity. As of this writing, the vineyard still isn't open to the public for tasting or tours, per the Los Angeles Times.

So, exactly what is included in the property (besides lots of wine)? Pelosi's vineyard sits on 16.55 acres and comes with two houses, a pool, and a tennis court, per Velvet Ropes.

Pelosi probably doesn't get out to Napa as often as she'd like, but according to the neighbors, there's no missing her when she's there. "When all the black SUVs are circling around the property — like planes gathering over O'Hare Airport — that is when you know they are here," a neighbor told the Los Angeles Times in 2015.

The most surprising thing about Nancy Pelosi is just how late in life she started her career. It seems like Pelosi has been around forever, but she didn't even run for office for the first time until her youngest child was in college. The reason? Pelosi had her hands full at home with five kids to look after. 

Don't think of Pelosi as some kind of overnight success, though. She spent years balancing work and home life and building a name for herself as a force to be reckoned with around San Francisco. The first step in Pelosi's ascension to the top was starting a local democratic club which she ran out of her house while her kids were little. As they got older, she started picking up more responsibility until eventually, a friend suggested she run for Congress, per Business Insider.

As for Pelosi's kids, they never felt neglected by their mom's packed schedule, though they remember her being pretty darn busy. "I remember her throughout my childhood with a telephone glued to her ear," her daughter, Alexandra told Los Angeles Times. "In the name of the Democratic Party, she's been on the phone for 32 years."

In addition to raising a large family, Nancy Pelosi also grew up in one. The speaker of the house was born far from her NorCal constituents in Baltimore, Maryland where she was one of seven. She can trace her passion for politics directly back to her dad, Thomas "Big Tommy" D'Alesandro Jr. D'Alesandro was a three-time mayor of Baltimore and even served as a congressman, per The Washington Post.

Pelosi wasn't the only one influenced by her father, her brother Thomas D'Alesandro III, followed in his dad's footsteps and became mayor of Baltimore himself. According to Jack Lapides, a politician from the area, the family, who once called Little Italy its home and grew into a political dynasty, owes their success to their Italian roots. "They stayed in Little Italy," Lapides explained when speaking to the Baltimore Sun in 2019. "They were proud of their roots. They didn't move outward. They stuck to the neighborhoods, and they thought the neighborhoods were the most important thing of the city. We've always been a city of neighborhoods, and they were fabulous at recognizing it."

While she might have learned a thing or two about politics from her dad, Pelosi will be the first to tell you he wasn't the reason to got into the biz. "I was really forged by my kids," she told The Washington Post.

It should come as no surprise that as a powerful woman in a male-dominated field, Nancy Pelosi has faced her fair share of misogyny. A lot could be said about the syntax that has been used to describe Pelosi's looks or attitude over the years.

There are dozens of articles about her clothing, something that's rarely given the same amount of attention when it comes to her male counterparts. Her political rivals have used misogynistic verbiage to paint her in an unfavorable light. However, Pelosi has faced the same amount of sexism from her supporters, as her daughter Alexandra Pelosi told the Los Angeles Times. "I often hear male politicians introduce her, and they always say how charming she is," she said. "They never say how hard-working she is. Well, she's worked harder than anybody else. She's earned it."

Pelosi isn't one to take it lying down though. In 2020, as soon as Elizabeth Warren dropped out of the presidential race, Pelosi spoke up and blamed sexism for the reason Warren struggled so much in the race. "Every time I get introduced as the most powerful woman, I almost cry, because I wish that were not true," Pelosi said at a press conference, per Politico. "I so wish that we had a woman president of the United States, and we came so close to doing that," she continued adding that "I do think there's a certain element of misogyny," to why Warren couldn't pull out a win.

When it comes to raising money, no one does it better than Nancy Pelosi. Case in point, in 2017, she reportedly raised more than $47 million for the Democratic Party. To put that in perspective, that year, the DCCC (Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee) raised a little more than $100 million in total, meaning that Pelosi brought in nearly half of that. Even more impressive, the bulk of that money came from direct donations solicited by Pelosi herself, per The Washington Post.

Pelosi broke that record the next year when fundraising numbers became even more important. She hit the ground running for the 2018 midterms and pulled in a whopping $83 million for her party. To put that in perspective, not only is it nearly double what she did the previous year, it is also double what the next closest democrat brought in that year, per CNN. What about 2019? Well, the upward trend continued in 2019, and according to The Hill, Pelosi "raised more than $87 million for Democratic candidates."

Nancy Pelosi is a mother of five, and we're willing to bet that being Pelosi's kid can feel like some seriously big shoes to fill. But, while most of her kids are busy doing politics or business-related things like mom and dad, one of them, Alexandra Pelosi, is making a name for herself as a filmmaker.

Pelosi's youngest daughter has directed and produced 13 documentaries with a focus on the various social-political issues facing the United States. Some of the topics she's covered include gun control and far-right religious organizations. Her first film, "Journeys with George," captured the final days of the George W. Bush campaign. Her 2020 film, "American Selfie," examines the growing political divide in middle America, which Alexandra believes is related to a global increase in social media use, per The Guardian. "Every single person I talked to, no matter who they were going to vote for or if they weren't going to vote at all or didn't even know who was on the ballot, would say: social media is destroying our mental health," she told the outlet when discussing the film. "It's destroying our conversation."

As of this writing, Alexandra hasn't released a documentary about her mother, but if she does, we're hoping it will include a tour of the Napa Valley vineyard.

Nancy Pelosi is no stranger to bad press, but in 2021 she found herself on the front page for an entirely new reason. During the capital riots in January, thieves broke into Pelosi's office, sat at her desk, riffled through her papers, and most alarmingly, stole her laptop.

Riley June Williams was accused of taking the laptop and trying to sell it to Russia, as it reportedly contained classified information. Williams was identified after an ex saw her on TV and called the FBI, per ABC. "At least one of the insurrectionists may have intended to steal information and give it to a foreign adversary," representative Joaquin Castro told reporters in February, per CNN. "According to charging documents, Riley Williams allegedly helped steal a laptop from Speaker Pelosi's office to 'send the computer device to a friend in Russia, who then planned to sell the device to SVR, Russia's foreign intelligence service,'" Castro said.

It seems unlikely that Williams successfully sold the laptop to Russia (after all, it's not like she has Vladimir Putin on speed dial) but nonetheless, the laptop remains missing.