Pelosi warns McConnell: We have 'more power'

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi warned Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Friday that Democrats have "more power" in the federal government going forward and said that will "change his leverage."

Pelosi spoke as Congress continues to try to pass a bipartisan COVID-19 stimulus bill in the lame duck session. 

The California Democrat was asked about her party losing seats in the House.

"May I remind you that we have a president of the United States. We have a president of the United States, that is so very important whether you are in the majority or the minority if the president is of your party you have more power," she said during a news conference.

"And I think that's what Mitch McConnell is going to find out now, whether he's in the majority or the minority, not having Donald Trump in the White House is going to change his leverage and that dynamic. But I am very proud," she added.

McConnell's office did not respond to a request for comment.

Pelosi said that Democrats have mandate as a result of the Nov. 3 election. She argued on Thursday that Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee, has "a mandate to address the challenges our country faces as well as to have a positive initiative on how to grow the economy in a fair way and in order to do that we must address the pandemic."

House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy disagreed with Pelosi's assessment, after House Democrats lost at least six seats on Nov. 3. 

"I heard the speaker call it a mandate. It was a mandate against socialism. It was a mandate against defunding the police. It was a mandate against wasting a majority that the Democrats have done for the last Congress," he said during news conference on Thursday.

Alongside Pelosi, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer called on Trump to support the House Democrats' coronavirus stimulus bill since his "approach" to the pandemic was "repudiated" in the presidential election.