Nancy Pelosi moved to clarify a statement she gave to Rolling Stone magazine over the weekend in which she appeared to announce that she is a member of the LGBTQ community.
“She means she’s pro-LGBTQ,” Pelosi’s deputy chief of staff Drew Hammill told TheWrap on Monday.
“As Leader and Speaker, Nancy Pelosi has, according to the Advocate, ‘driven LGBT causes further than any other person in Washington.’ The Leader is very clearly referring to her longstanding work in this regard in this interview,” Hammill added in a statement.
The House Democratic leader raised a few eyebrows on Twitter after Rolling Stone’s Tim Dickinson published this nugget as part of a lengthy interview with her.
Your critics say you’re too liberal-
I’m LGBTQ, I support those issues. I’m proud to. But they use that – they go into these districts and they say, “Too liberal.”
"I'm LGBTQ" – Nancy Pelosi, in an interview with Rolling Stone https://t.co/weXtwCo3O6 pic.twitter.com/S7O2plqcuS
— Hunter Schwarz (@hunterschwarz) July 9, 2018
huge if true
— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) July 9, 2018
Literally impossible for any individual to be LGBTQ
— Andrew Sullivan (@sullydish) July 9, 2018
https://twitter.com/natemcdermott/status/1016388143749230592
Wenner Media, which owns Rolling Stone, did not immediately respond to TheWrap’s request for comment, but the clarification from team Pelosi suggests it was not a misprint or transcription error.
Pelosi expanded more on her support for the LGBTQ community in the interview immediately after her the comment that was mistook by some as a statement about her sexual orientation.
As Pelosi and her party look to challenge Republicans for control of the House of Representatives in the 2018 midterms, questions continue to swirl as to whether she will stay on as the Democratic leader. Despite her prodigious fundraising capacity, the 78-year-old has overseen a series of disastrous election cycles, which have led her party into the minority on Capitol Hill and hollowed out moderates.
In her interview with Rolling Stone, Pelosi suggested speculation about her future was sexist.
“I think some of it is a little bit on the sexist side — although I wouldn’t normally say that. Except it’s like, really? Has anyone asked whatshisname, the one who’s the head of Senate?” she said.
“McConnell. I mean he’s got the lowest numbers of anybody in the world. Have you ever gone up to him and said, ‘How much longer do you think you’ll stay in this job?’ Nobody ever went up to Harry Reid and said that. Nobody ever says that to anybody except a woman.”