(WASHINGTON) — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced Tuesday she is running for reelection.

“While we have made progress much more needs to be done to improve people’s lives. This election is crucial: nothing less is at stake than our Democracy. But we don’t agonize-we organize. I am running for re-election to Congress to deliver For The People and defend Democracy. -NP,” Pelosi said in a tweet.

As rumors continued to swirl over Pelosi’s possible retirement, she is putting them to bed — for now.

She could always announce a resignation in the coming months, depending on which party keeps the House after the midterm elections — or she could choose to stay if she wins her seat.

The reelection announcement does not mean she will necessarily be running for the speaker’s gavel should Democrats keep the House.

And if they do retain the majority through the midterms and she stays in office, Democrats will likely be looking for fresh leadership.

Last January, the House narrowly reelected Pelosi as speaker with 216 votes, giving the California Democrat a fourth term as its leader.

Pelosi, who is the only woman to ever serve in the leadership role, has previously said she will not run for speaker after 2022.

She will turn 82 in March.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(KYIV, Ukriane) — The acting U.S. ambassador to Ukraine told ABC News Tuesday that an order for diplomats’ families at the embassy to leave the country was issued because Russia could attack “any day now” if it chose.

Kristina Kvien, the embassy’s charge d’affairs, made the remarks after standing in the bitter cold with a Ukrainian deputy defense minister to receive a 79-ton delivery of American military aid at Kyiv’s Boryspil Airport, intended to help Ukraine defend itself against Russia.

The U.S. State Department on Sunday ordered diplomats’ families to leave and authorized non-emergency staff to depart if they choose, in light of the threat of a possible Russian invasion, as Moscow masses over 100,000 troops near Ukraine’s borders. Ukraine’s government has criticized the decision, calling it “premature” and “excessively cautious.” The United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and Germany have since followed suit in various forms, but the majority of European countries have said so far they do not believe such a step is warranted.

Kvien told ABC News the decision on the partial evacuation was taken out of an “abundance of caution” given the scale of the Russian build up.

“The decision was made because right now Vladimir Putin and Russia have built up such military might on the border that they could take an action any day now,” she said. “And with that in mind, we felt that out of an abundance of caution, we had to make sure that our embassy families were safe. So that was the basis for a decision.”

Kvien said Russia had built up so many troops it “means that Russia could do anything at any moment.”

“It’s like a gun to the head of Ukraine,” she said. “And we don’t think that Ukraine should have to live with a loaded gun to its head.”

Ukrainian officials have publicly disagreed with the U.S. assessment that a Russian attack could take place at any moment. A deputy defense minister, Hanna Malyar, on Tuesday said the number of Russian troops at the border currently is “not enough for a full-scale invasion.”

In general, Ukrainian officials are more skeptical that Russia will really go through with a major attack and in recent days they have become increasingly vocal in contesting the picture coming from the U.S. that an attack is imminent. The head of Ukraine’s national security council, Alexey Danilov, on Monday told the BBC that “the number of Russian troops is not increasing in the way many people are presenting it”.

Ukrainian officials instead have suggested they believe Russia’s build up is currently intended to destabilize Ukraine with the threat of attack, including by undermining its economy. Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in video addresses has urged Ukrainians not to panic and that the threat of invasion is not worse now than when Russia began the conflict in 2014.

Kvien said she believed Ukraine’s government views the threat seriously.

“I do think that President Zelenskyy is taking the threat very seriously, and he is being careful to make preparations as needed,” she said.

“They’ve been living with Russian threats for a long time. So I would say that they are just a bit more, ‘sang froid’ as they say, in French. But that doesn’t mean that they don’t take them seriously,” she said.

The U.S. military aid shipment landing on Tuesday was the third to arrive in a week, part of a $200 million security aid package approved to help Ukraine defend itself and deter Russia.

The delivery included 276 Javelin anti-tank missiles, over 800 SMAW-D shoulder-fired “bunker buster” missiles, 170 pounds of 50-caliber ammunition and bomb disposal suits.

Kvien said the weapons demonstrated the U.S.’ “absolute, rock-solid support” for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

The U.S. is still seeking to avert a Russian attack through diplomacy. Russia has demanded guarantees from the U.S. that Ukraine will never join NATO and that the alliance will pull back forces from eastern European countries that joined after the Cold War.

The U.S. has already ruled that out but has proposed discussing other security issues, such as limits on missiles deployments and military exercises.

Kvien repeated there are “some areas” that the U.S. is able to talk about with Russia to try to address its concerns, such as “arms control, better transparency in terms of military exercises,” but she reiterated that Ukraine’s choice to try to join NATO was not on the table. She said she hoped Putin would choose to take the path of diplomacy.

“I think that it’s the only reasonable path. I think it’s the only path that ultimately will lead to a more secure Europe, which Mr. Putin says he would like to have,” she said.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — Right-wing radio host and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones appeared before the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, he disclosed on his show, telling his audience he invoked the Fifth Amendment to protect himself against self-incrimination “almost 100 times.”

Jones, who was subpoenaed by the committee to provide testimony and records, spoke at a Jan. 5 rally in Washington, D.C., and was also in contact with organizers of the rallies scheduled for Jan. 6, when pro-Trump rioters attacked Capitol Police and disrupted the electoral vote count.

“I went there to have a peaceful political rally, to put peaceful political pressure on Congress,” Jones said. “It’s a horrible historic fiasco and I wish it never happened.”

Jones said the virtual interview with the committee was “extremely interesting to say the least,” and that investigators were “polite” and “dogged.”

He told investigators — who gave him the impression that they regularly monitor his shows — that he had no knowledge of any plans for violence on Jan. 6.

Jones said the committee had “overall pretty reasonable” questions, even though he declined to answer nearly 100 of them.

“I wanted to answer the questions, but at the same time, it’s a good thing I didn’t,” he said. “I’m the type that tries to answer things correctly, even if I don’t know all the answers, and they can then kind of claim that’s perjury” he said.

Jones said the committee showed emails and text messages to him during their session — some of the thousands of records investigators have obtained from dozens of witnesses during their monthslong investigation.

He also said he “had not seen” a clip from his show on Dec. 31, 2020, when a guest host, Matthew Bracken, floated the notion of storming the Capitol to disrupt the electoral vote count.

Jones said investigators also questioned him about his participation in a “Stop the Steal” rally at the Georgia Capitol, and about who he was in touch with in the Trump White House.

“They asked me if we were with Proud Boys and if we were with Oath Keepers,” he said, recalling eating at a Hooters restaurant at his Georgia hotel with members of the far-right group.

“All I know is what I saw and what I witnessed,” he said.

On his show after the Captiol attack, Jones said the White House had asked him to “lead the march” to the Capitol. But on his show Monday, he said he never supported efforts to enter the Capitol and that his main point of contact was Trump campaign fundraiser Caroline Wren, who helped organize the rally outside the White House on Jan. 6.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — U.S. Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman, the man who led rioters up the stairs and away from the Senate chamber on Jan. 6, 2021, broke his yearlong silence Monday when he appeared on the podcast “3 Brothers No Sense.”

“It could have easily been a blood bath,” Goodman says on the show. “So kudos to everyone there that showed a measure of restraint in regards to deadly force, because it could have been bad.”

Goodman’s heroics were caught on camera in what became a viral video that came to light during President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial in the Senate, which revealed Goodman also guided Sen. Mitt Romney back to the Senate chamber, helping him narrowly avoid contact with the rioters.

The officer’s description of the day is one in which he kicked into “go mode” and relied heavily on previous military training to guide him. He said his decision to move up the stairs with the protestors wasn’t entirely by choice because he thought “they would have followed me anyway.”

“Any situation like that you want to de-escalate, but at the same time you wanna survive first,” Goodman says.

He also discusses his newfound fame and explains that he has chosen to stay out of the spotlight to protect his family’s privacy.

“I keep asking myself that question every day like who the hell am I?” Goodman says. “I’m the guy everybody keeps saying saved the Senate… I don’t need no statue, though, that’s one more thing for a bird to prop up and take a dump on.”

Up until Monday, Goodman has avoided media appearances. The podcast interview was conducted by the three hosts, one of whom, Officer Byron Evans, serves as a member of the U.S. Capitol Police.

Earlier this month, “World News Tonight” anchor David Muir sat down with three Capitol Police officers who were at the Capitol on Jan. 6 last year.

ABC News’ Rachel Scott and Allison Pecorin contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.