Pelosi said 'you couldn't pay me a billion dollars' to run for speaker again, according to an upcoming book

• Nancy Pelosi privately vented about having to "grovel" for another term as speaker, a new book says.
• Pelosi faced resistance from within her own caucus to serve as speaker after the 2018 midterms.

Nancy Pelosi privately vented about having to "grovel" for another term as House speaker after the 2018 midterms and said "at this point in my life, I don't need this," according to a forthcoming book.

New York Times reporters Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns pull back the curtain on Pelosi's internal frustrations in their forthcoming book "This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden, and the Battle for America's Future," due for release on May 3. Punchbowl News reported on some excerpts of the book's reporting on Friday morning.

Pelosi showed "her frustration with unusual vehemence" on the day of her election to serve as House speaker, the authors wrote, describing her as "discussing her political future in a way she rarely did around colleagues," and saying her 2019 election to serve as speaker again "seemed like a joyless one."

"You couldn't pay me a billion dollars to run for Speaker again," Pelosi said that day, according to the book.

Pelosi broke a glass ceiling as the first woman to serve as House speaker after Democrats won back control of the House of Representatives in 2006. In her two terms as speaker, Pelosi developed a reputation as a master legislative tactician, including the mammoth feat of shepherding the Affordable Care Act through Congress.

But when Democrats came back into power after the 2018 midterms, Pelosi was faced with a different Democratic caucus. Several moderate members from battleground districts had campaigned on opposing Pelosi for the role. And multiple members of her Congress from across the ideological spectrum openly challenged Pelosi's leadership and suggested she was out of touch, leading her to make a number of deals and arrangements with Democrats in the weeks leading up to the speakership vote.

"The experience of begging for support was wearing on her," the authors wrote of Pelosi. "Pelosi was the only Democrat in the chamber — the only Democrat alive — who had already served as Speaker, who had shown she could do the legislative arithmetic and twist the necessary arms to get things done. And yet [her fellow Democrats] were making her grovel."

"At this point in my life, I don't need this," Pelosi said,

The book also reveals Pelosi's frustration with other Bidenworld officials, particularly President Joe Biden's pick to run the Department of Health and Human Services, Secretary Xavier Becerra, and with White House chief of staff and top adviser Ron Klain.

Many Democrats were "flummoxed" by Biden's choice of Becerra given his lack of public health experience. Pelosi especially distrusted Becerra from her time working with him in the House.

"'You should know who you're hiring," Pelosi admonished Biden adviser Steve Ricchetti, according to the book, artfully adding, "I may have some valuable information.'"

Pelosi and other congressional Democrats were also occasionally irritated by Klain's style. Pelosi also batted down a suggestion from an aide to consult Klain on healthcare policy in 2020, according to the book, wondering what Klain could have to advise her on.