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Rep. Nancy Pelosi underwent “successful” hip replacement surgery at a U.S. military hospital in Germany on Saturday morning and is now in recovery, according to her spokesman, Ian Krager.
Pelosi, the former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, reportedly fell on a flight of stairs while in Luxembourg, according to media reports.
Her office has not provided further details about the incident other than stating that she “sustained an injury during an official engagement.”
She had traveled to the small European nation as part of a U.S. congressional delegation trip to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge during World War II.
Pelosi had been scheduled to attend an event on Saturday in the Belgian town of Bastogne, which was a key site of intense fighting during the battle, media reports said.
“Speaker Pelosi is grateful to US military staff at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center at Landstuhl Army Base and medical staff at Hospital Kirchberg in Luxembourg for their excellent care and kindness,” Krager said in the statement.
The Landstuhl base is located in western Germany, about 120 kilometers east of Luxembourg.
Pelosi, a Democrat, still represents San Francisco in Congress. Although she stepped down from her senior leadership position in 2023, she remains one of the most influential figures within her party. It’s not clear when she will be cleared to return to the U.S. following her surgery.
She was widely seen as a key influence in persuading President Joe Biden to withdraw from his re-election bid earlier this year.
The overwhelming win of President-elect Donald Trump over Vice President Kamala Harris probably marks the beginning of the end of the power of senior politicians like Pelosi in Democratic politics.
Pelosi, the woman “who for decades reigned as kingmaker in her party, facing the prospect of having her status as a power player in the party unceremoniously stripped away on the back of” the loss of Harris, the UK’s DailyMail.com reported this month.
The startling drop comes only months after she played a significant role in attempts to disqualify President Joe Biden.
The 84-year-old Pelosi was seen getting into a furious argument with fellow Democratic insider and former DNC chief Donna Brazile at Harris’ concession address at Howard University in November. The former Speaker is at the forefront of the charges as the blame game heats up following the vice president’s massive loss, the outlet reported.
“The influences of a [Senate Majority Leader Chuck] Schumer or a Pelosi or a movie star or an Obama deciding to anoint somebody – those guys are gone,” business investor and Shark Tank star Kevin O’Leary said last week.
“In four years, they won’t have that kind of influence,” he added in a thinly veiled reference to actor George Clooney, who famously and publicly called on Biden to end his reelection following a disastrous debate with Trump.
Some Republicans are directly attributing the significant Democratic losses—from the top of the ticket to the Senate flipping red and the House still in contention—specifically to Pelosi.
“You’ve got to blame Nancy Pelosi,” former GOP House Speaker and fellow Californian Kevin McCarthy said during a Fox News interview earlier this month.
Pelosi has been widely recognized as a key figure in Biden’s July decision to withdraw from the race just months before Election Day.
McCarthy also stated that the effort constituted an attack on the democratic process, as primary voters across the country cast their ballots for Biden, only to see Harris emerge as their nominee.
“Joe Biden never should have ran for office. I knew it when I sat with him. There was something wrong with him,” McCarthy said.
