Story highlights
Pelosi pointed out Thursday that she's never been on the cover of Time magazine
She said her Republican counterparts have been on prominent magazine covers
Pelosi, who has been in Congress 27 years, was asked if she'd consider stepping down
Nancy Pelosi doesn’t understand why House Speaker John Boehner and newly-elected Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have been on the cover of Time magazine in light of their electoral victories, but she has not.
“I was never on Time magazine cover even though I was first women to be (Speaker),” Rep. Pelosi, D-California, said. “Isn’t that a curiosity? That the Republicans win, Boehner’s on Time magazine. Mitch McConnell wins, he’s on the cover of Time magazine. Isn’t there a pattern here?”
Pelosi’s comments came as a reaction to a press conference question Thursday about whether she has considered stepping down as minority leader in light of the Democrats losing the House for the fourth time since she led the chamber in 2011.
Charging that the question was unnecessary, Pelosi said she is now thinking that she has “a mission for women on this score.”
‘When was the day when any of you said Mitch McConnell, when they lost (taking back) the Senate three times in a row, ‘Aren’t you getting a little old, Mitch? Shouldn’t you step aside,’” Pelosi asked. “Have any of you ever asked him that question?”
“It’s just is interesting as a women to see how many time that question asked as a women and how many times that question is never asked of Mitch McConnell,” she continued.
Pelosi, a 27-year veteran of Congress, said the issue shouldn’t have even come up, and that her record and speaks for itself.
“I’m here as long as my members want me to be here, as long as there’s a reason to be here. I’m not here on a schedule, on anything except a mission to get a job done.”
Addressing reporters, Pelosi wrapped her remarks asking, “With all due respect to all of you. But as a woman, ‘Is there a message here? Is there something that we’re missing?’”
Other females have appeared on the cover of Time Magazine around 2008 when Pelosi was historically elected as the first female Speaker of the House. In 2007, the magazine put then-Senator Hillary Clinton on its’ November issue cover and in February of that year, then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice also graced the front of the publication. Other notable politicians also received the prime cover position, including George W. Bush in 2007, and then-Senator Barack Obama, who was on the cover just before the 2006 election under the headline: “The Next President?”
In 2011, Pelosi took a dig at both Time Magazine and Newsweek by appearing on the cover of Ms. Magazine under the headline: “The Woman Time and Newsweek Won’t Put On Their Covers.”