"My biggest fight has been between those who wanted to do something incremental and those who wanted to do something comprehensive. We won that fight, and once we kick through this door, there'll be more legislation to follow"
About this Quote
The phrase “We won that fight” is a quiet flex of leadership. It signals she didn’t merely broker a compromise; she enforced a direction. Pelosi’s intent is coalition discipline: reassure progressives that the party won’t settle for symbolic half-measures, while warning moderates that the train is leaving the station. The line also smuggles in a procedural truth about Congress: big bills often function like infrastructure for future bills, building agencies, standards, and constituencies that make the next round easier.
“Kicks through this door” is deliberately physical, almost cinematic. It’s a metaphor for breaking a logjam - institutional inertia, lobby pressure, Senate math - but it also dares her caucus to treat the moment as irreversible. Once you cross a threshold, you normalize scale. The subtext is agenda-setting: pass one comprehensive package and you change expectations, proving the government can still act at full capacity. It’s Pelosi selling momentum as policy.
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Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Pelosi, Nancy. (2026, January 18). My biggest fight has been between those who wanted to do something incremental and those who wanted to do something comprehensive. We won that fight, and once we kick through this door, there'll be more legislation to follow. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/my-biggest-fight-has-been-between-those-who-970/
Chicago Style
Pelosi, Nancy. "My biggest fight has been between those who wanted to do something incremental and those who wanted to do something comprehensive. We won that fight, and once we kick through this door, there'll be more legislation to follow." FixQuotes. January 18, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/my-biggest-fight-has-been-between-those-who-970/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"My biggest fight has been between those who wanted to do something incremental and those who wanted to do something comprehensive. We won that fight, and once we kick through this door, there'll be more legislation to follow." FixQuotes, 18 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/my-biggest-fight-has-been-between-those-who-970/. Accessed 19 Feb. 2026.