Former House Speaker John Boehner paid a tearful tribute to Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday at the unveiling of her official portrait in the U.S. Capitol. (snip)

"You’ve been incredibly effective as the leader of your caucus. The younger generation today has a saying: 'Game recognizes game.' The fact of the matter is no other speaker of the House in the modern era — Republican or Democrat — has wielded the gavel with such authority or with such consistent results," Boehner said, calling Pelosi "one tough cookie."

"My girls told me, 'Tell the speaker how much we admire her,'" Boehner said, choking back tears as he spoke. "As if you couldn't tell, my girls are Democrats," he said to laughs at the ceremony in the Capitol. (snip)

Pelosi, who in 2007 became the first female speaker of the House, had joked about Boehner’s penchant for tears when she spoke at his portrait ceremony in 2019.

“I was just trying to think of occasions when I saw John crying. And then I was thinking of occasions when I didn’t see John crying,” she quipped before she praised him as a “formidable spokesman for his party and for his cause” and someone who “sought common ground when he could and held his ground when he could not.”

Pelosi said Wednesday that she was "honored" by his presence and joked, “I would have been a little disappointed if he did not get emotional.”

“Whenever I get stressed about what’s happening in Washington, I always feel better knowing that Nancy is on the case,” Obama said. “And that’s because for Nancy, nothing is impossible.”

Pelosi, he said, was the Democrat who did not give up on his signature ACA in 2009, not even after Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) died, leaving Democrats with one fewer vote in the Senate.

“She would always say: ‘If the gate is closed, we’ll push it open,’” Obama recalled.

Pelosi, he said, “will go down as one of the most accomplished legislator leaders in American history.”

“And even after insurrectionists literally broke into her office,” Obama said, “she never stopped defending democracy here at home and around the world.”