House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi told an audience this week that when America’s chips were down there was a specific man who rose to the occasion and saved the nation: the Rev. Al Sharpton.

The California Democrat spoke at the National Action Network’s (NAN) Legislative & Policy Conference on Wednesday when she cast Mr. Sharpton as a national savior. Mrs. Pelosi said that groundwork laid by the MSNBC host during NAN’s founding decades ago paid dividends during the midterm elections.

“We are going to be visionary,” she told an audience in the nation’s capital. “We are going to be unifying. We are going to be healing. We are going to be transparent in how we do this.”

Mrs. Pelosi then grabbed Mr. Sharpton’s hand and shook it with gratitude for the Democratic Party’s recent wins at the ballot box.

“We are going to be respectful of other views, but we are going to try to find our common ground where we can,” she said. “We have a responsibility to do that, but where we can’t, stand our ground like a rock. That’s what Thomas Jefferson advised us to do. … Thank you [NAN] for helping to take back America. … Thank you, Rev. Al Sharpton, for saving America.”

Mr. Sharpton founded the nonprofit organization in 1991.