The FRONTLINE Interviews

Carl Hulse

Washington Correspondent, The New York Times

Carl Hulse is the chief Washington, D.C., correspondent for The New York Times.

The following interview was conducted by FRONTLINE's Jim Gilmore on Dec. 7, 2021. It has been edited for clarity and length.

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Pelosi’s Power

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Carl Hulse

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The Financial Crisis

Carl, let's talk a little about the financial crisis in 2008 to begin with.At that point, both sides agree to be bipartisan.The idea is basically we'll hold hands together and jump off the cliff, but it has to happen for the sake of the country.But [John] Boehner doesn't come up with the votes that he had promised, that he was expected to.What are the lessons learned by [Nancy] Pelosi from that event?Did it say something to her about the GOP?Did it affect the way she would deal with the GOP in the future?

Yeah, I was there the day that that vote went down, and it was a scary moment there in the chamber.And the Republicans hadn't delivered what they said they were going to deliver.

I think Nancy Pelosi—and you have to remember at this time George W. Bush is president, so she's rescuing a Republican president because she's looking at this broader picture.They can make Bush look terrible right before the election, but that's going to be horrible for the country.I mean, those days on Capitol Hill were pretty scary.People were really frantic and worried about what was going to happen to the economy, and she figured out a way to regroup and work with the Republicans to deliver the vote.

And that's what Pelosi has shown over and over; that she will get the votes however she can get them.She showed it then; she's shown it in her recent successes.So whatever it takes to get it done, she'll do it.I think it's gotten a lot harder for her now because the Republicans just really won't cooperate at all.

… Do you think, though, that one of the lessons she maybe learned was that Republicans are not good-faith partners and that in the future if you've got the votes, don't worry about the Republicans?Did it make her more partisan?

I think that what it made her recognize is that the Republicans didn't control their votes the way she controlled her votes.She was more confident of what she says she can deliver when she started to realize that the Republican Conference was so fractured that even the leadership saying, "We're going to do this," that didn't mean that they would be able to do it.

Nancy Pelosi has always been a partisan person.She came to Congress as the—after serving as the chairman of the California Democratic Party, being a big fundraiser for the party.So she's a partisan person, but she's also a very pragmatic person.And, you know, if it takes Republican votes to get it done, she's going to get them.And I think the infrastructure bill that passed this year is a great example of that.

Pelosi and Partisanship

She also comes from Baltimore politics with her dad and San Francisco politics where they never had to deal with Republicans.What does it mean that she's partisan?

That she is—she sees the Democratic Party as the party of the ideals that she thinks the country should adopt.She thinks Democrats, you know, going back to [Franklin D.] Roosevelt—she sees the Democratic Party as the party that's going to help the people, you know, "for the children."This is—this is the phrase she uses a lot on Capitol Hill.It causes a lot of eye rolling because everyone has heard it so much, but she actually does believe that.

And so she thinks that the Republicans are too tied to business and looking backwards and not helping enough.And that's, I mean, she's partisan in the fact that she really embraces the ideology of her party.

Pelosi, Obama, and the Affordable Care Act

When [President Barack] Obama comes in and he's all about bipartisanship, what's her attitude about this idea of Obama's bipartisanship?How different are their views about how to work with the GOP?

I think that, for one thing, she was an extraordinary help to Obama in his race and his primary against Hillary Clinton, even though she didn't really come out and endorse him.She had her thumb on the scales for Obama because she thought he was a transformative person.

But I also think that the general perception on Capitol Hill with what I would call the professional leadership class up there saw Obama as naïve; that, you know, he thought—and to some degree we're seeing that again with Joe Biden—but that she thought, and certainly Harry Reid and folks in the Senate thought, that Obama didn't understand what the Republicans were about at that time.

And the Republicans are at a moment where they're transforming themselves.The Tea Party erupts.I think that there was, when Obama came in, immediately there was a sense on Capitol Hill—and I know this from talking to Republicans at the time—the day that the new Congress convenes in 2009, they're looking at Obama, and they go, "Wow, we are in big trouble.The Democrats could be in command here for a long time."

They quickly realized that their base wanted them to fight Obama.That's what they wanted.And I think Nancy Pelosi recognized that.And that's how she went about it.She knew that they weren't going to get many Republican votes on health care, but no Republican votes on health care?That was probably, you know—they saw that as it went along.

But Nancy Pelosi's a realist about Republicans, and I think she saw what they were doing at that time.And Obama, you know, he came to see it, too.And the 2010 election was a watershed that showed the Republicans that they have to fight the Democrats to win, and resist at all costs, really.

But early on she's seeing what the Republicans are.She's learned from the financial crisis; she's learned from other events early on.It's been said she's counseling Obama on ACA that "You've got to go big; we have the votes; we have the majorities, and we have the White House; we can get what we want."Was she being listened to?Was she being ignored?

I don't know that she was being ignored, but I think that there was a calculation at the White House that they weren't going to be able to get all of that; that they did want to try and bring along Chuck Grassley, right?They were trying to have Republican votes for this because they know if they don't have Republican votes, they're going to get crushed in the midterms.And I think that they were trying to figure out a way to keep this at least a semblance of bipartisanship.

Chuck Grassley helped—he helped write the bill and the ideas, which really came from the Heritage Foundation if you go all the way back to it.

But then the Republicans figured out that they're going to be doing better with their voters if they don't cooperate.And it was probably—I'm sure there's folks in Obamaland now who think that was a miscalculation.

But they did get their bill through.

Then there was Scott Brown winning in Massachusetts, [Ted] Kennedy's seat.And there's the famous meeting that you probably reported on back then in the White House where Rahm Emanuel is selling the idea of going small.

… Nancy at that point goes, "Wait a minute.We'll go big.If we go big, you've got me.I'm going to make it happen.If you go small, I'm out."Talk about that moment in history, after Scott Brown, and what the thinking was and what Pelosi's thinking was and what happened.

Well, I think at that point you have to think about the Senate, because the Senate has now lost its ability to do anything with 60 votes.So it's what you could get through the Senate.And there was—they were limited on what they could get through there.

This was a compromise that Obama made that he thought to get the best bill he could and still not get hammered in the midterms, although that turned out not to be true.Nancy Pelosi wanted to go big, but she also had a bunch of people in her caucus who didn't want to do anything at all.

So I think she was disappointed and would have preferred to do something much larger.In fact, they're still—they're still fixing what they did now, but, you know—and Rahm had a different approach.

Now, I will say that Rahm and Pelosi have had a very strong relationship since then.They had their issue there, but I think that she relies a lot on Rahm.They still talk a lot and for political advice.

She wasn't happy about that when I asked her about it the other day.But what was her attitude about what Rahm was doing at that point?

She wanted to have a bigger bill, and she wanted to get health care done.But she also realized that you've got to take what you can get, and that was a massive procedural morass there.A lot of folks, including Representative Barney Frank (D-Mass.), at the time a very important figure in all this, thought they wouldn't be able to get it done because it took this big two-step of passing the Senate bill and then passing a second bill to fix up all the things they needed to fix.

But I think, again, it showed that Pelosi, once she actually accepts what's in front of her, the cards that she has, that she then sets out to play those cards in the best way possible.

And she played a hell of a game.

Yes.

Talk a little bit about how she had to convince her caucus to go along, the famous meetings where she's talking to people about abortion and other issues—

Yeah, that was a biggie.

—and saying, "I need you; I've got to have you."And a lot of these caucus members knew that if they voted the way she wanted them to, they'd probably lose their seats.How does the ground game work, and how does she feel about the fact that some of these people will eventually lose their seats because of it?

Yeah, I think that, you know, Richard Neal, the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, Massachusetts Dem[ocrat], said to me recently, he says, "It's really not rocket science.She wheels and deals until she gets it, and then she goes and votes."And that's what happens.But she has to pick off people individually.

Now, there were a significant number of Democrats who just were not going to vote for the health care bill, so even though she had a much larger majority, she was still working within a fairly small number of votes she could actually lose.My recollection is, these abortion talks went—they were right up to the end.And it looked like maybe a deal breaker.And she managed to somehow, you know, get enough concessions to get Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), who was the leader of that group at that time, to sign on.And she had to do that while keeping the more liberal members of her caucus on board because they were disappointed there was no big health care bill and no public option.So there were—some of those folks didn't want to even vote for the bill that they were voting on.

But it was just a classic example of legislative compromise and how she brings people together.She brings them in by groups.She brings them in individually.She calls them on the phone.She has allies of people call those people to work them over.I mean, she's got the full playbook, and she applies it when she has to do it.And it's worked for her.

But it's not like—she is not in there arm-twisting and growling and saying, "You have to do that."Those days are gone.Those kind of speakerships don't exist anymore.But she's more cajoling, but some veiled threats.You know, there's always a few veiled threats.And as somebody told me recently, she keeps score.

So if you cross her and go against her when she needs you, there's going to be a moment you need something and you're not going to get it, or she's going to make it very difficult for you, or she's going to remind you in that extremely polite tone that, "Oh, remember what you did when I asked you to do something?"

So it's just the classic, the entire playbook of legislative persuasion.And she's really learned how to do it.And she does it, you know—she never curses, so it's never that, screaming expletives or anything.It's a full litany of tactics and maneuvers that she uses.

Pelosi and Trump

Let's talk about when [President Donald] Trump comes in. …

Oh, where he says, "I won California"?

Yeah.

And she says, "No, you didn't."

Yeah, she stands up to him.So talk about that meeting, what happens and how it helps to define what her strategy was from there on in in dealing with this president.

Well, I think, for one thing, Trump likes to intimidate, and you're not going to—he was never going to intimidate Nancy Pelosi. …

So she just wasn't going to put up with it.You know, I think there was some real disappointment that obviously that Hillary Clinton lost, because it would have been the first woman, and I think Nancy Pelosi would have celebrated that for sure, as a first in so many places by her own right.

But, you know, she just wasn't going to take Trump.And then he says California, which she knows way better than he does, and so she's not going to listen to that and accept it, because people—at this point, Trump's now the new president.I'm sure he's getting very used to people just pretty much accepting whatever he says, and that's not going to be Nancy Pelosi.

And I think she realized early on that, you know, he's a little full of it, and she's going to operate that way.I don't think she realized it was going to get as bad as it got.I mean, their relationship totally deteriorated.

And they made some offers to Trump.They tried to get him to do infrastructure.They made an offer to him on immigration that probably would have been a good deal for him to take.And he—you know, he would say it—he would kind of, in the meetings, go along because he's a dealmaker, too, and then, you know, his folks would get with him, and it would all unravel.

And I think she just got to the point where she'd had it with Trump and, you know, he was—he was nasty about her.What did he call her, Crazy Nancy?And, you know, she was just going to go her own way, do what needed to be done.But at the end, they didn't talk at all.

After impeachment, what was the relationship?

Well, maybe even before that.And she was—she did not want to impeach Trump that first go-round.I mean, she really, really resisted that.She didn't think it was good politics.She didn't think it was good for the country necessarily because you're just setting up this game of every future president, when the House is controlled by the other party, faces the possibly of impeachment.

But her caucus really wanted to go there, and I think that she eventually saw the foreign policy issues as enough.And then of course, on the second impeachment, she was furious, so there was going to be no stopping that.

But I think she saw Trump as a buffoon, but one who was in power and somebody that she had to minimally deal with just to get the basics done.

What about Trump would get her goat more than anything else?

I mean, I think the lying.She would refer to that a lot, that he just was not truthful.And for somebody like her, she takes her Ten Commandments pretty seriously as a devout Catholic.And that's sort of the currency on Capitol Hill.No matter what, you have to be able to have some trust in what somebody's saying, and if you can't trust the president, and you're the head of the other party, it's hard to move forward.

Talk about the kind of politician she is in the 2018 midterms.She laid out a strategy for her caucus: In many of the districts, you do not go after Trump.You sell what we have to sell.You sell health care; you sell the things that we're strong on. …She was supporting Democratic candidates who were talking against her … because the votes are the thing.Talk about that.

Well, that's the pragmatic side of Nancy Pelosi.She doesn't care what they say about her as long as they're going to make her speaker again, and—although that was a very difficult speaker election.But … in 2006, it was the same thing, where they were going out and recruiting Democratic candidates who were very conservative and, you know, gun rights, anti-abortion, but they wanted—they just wanted the numbers.And I think that's what she was dealing with in 2018.They're looking at a midterm.Trump's in trouble.She's willing to help candidates who say they won't vote for her as long as they're going to put the Democrats in the majority.

And the interesting thing about that election, to me, was that health care had become a positive, right?They lost on health care in 2010, but this is the way it works with Washington entitlement and benefit programs.It takes a while for it to sink in, but once it does, they become popular.People begin to rely on them.I think health care was the dominant issue for them in 2018, and it worked.

She's famous for the fact that she can raise more money than anybody else.

I don't know how much it is, but it's a lot.

Millions and millions and millions.

Hundreds of millions.

Division in the Democratic Party

And so she's very responsible for how well they did in 2018.But yet, when she comes back, the vote for speaker is very difficult.And you've got this group of moderates, including a group of five white guys, who go after her.What's she thinking?How does she view it?And why was she so easily able to eventually get the numbers?

Yeah, it was—I think that it was very difficult.It was much more difficult, it turned out to be, than we at The New York Times even anticipated. …

You know, we looked at this and thought, oh, well, she's had these episodes before; she usually comes through.But it started to look dicey for her, like maybe it wasn't there.And there—people are starting to talk about real possibilities of other people and how would that happen.

And—but she just kept at it.And she would make these promises to the Problem Solvers Caucus, which was the more moderates led by folks from New Jersey and gave them a little bit—gave them enough that they could then turn around and say, "OK, well, we won some concessions from her, and we're going to vote for her."

And so she just did it just like she's always done it.She picks them off one by one, turns the tide, turns the temperature.And at the end of the day, though, too, I think that there's a lot of these Democrats who just go, "If she doesn't—if she's not the leader, we're in serious trouble.Who else knows how to lead this group of people?Who else can get it done?," because they have seen what's happened on the other side with John Boehner, Paul Ryan, how, you know, you can lose control.And they saw her as the person who could continue to lead them in a very difficult situation.

Now, she's been leading them for so long, the question becomes, who is going to follow her and be able to do it?And that today still remains a big, open question.

But the fact that it was so difficult at that point, the fact that there was a group trying to dethrone her, what does that say about the caucus by that point?

Well, this is the evolution of Democrats, and I think this is what's made Nancy Pelosi's job so difficult today.The party discipline just isn't there, you know.When Tip O'Neill or Sam Rayburn, you know, these pretty illustrious speakers of legend and how they managed to get all this done, one, they had really big majorities, and the party, the folks in the party were inclined to go along with the leadership.I mean, they had their own priorities, but you bucked the leadership at great risk.

People now, a lot of these members, they have their own agendas, and they have their own social media followings.I know that Nancy Pelosi tells people that unfortunately some of her members are more concerned about their Twitter followers than they are about the legislation that they're enacting.

And I think that that's what's happened, is that it's just become harder and harder for the party to enforce, you know, its will on these folks, right?They are worried about their own reelection.Now, people have always been worried about their reelection, but they're much more independent contractors or see themselves as much more independent contractors.And there's a benefit—and it's a benefit on both ends, progressive and the more moderate Democrat end—to show distance from the leadership: "I'm not afraid to take on Nancy Pelosi."So you have that element.And when the majorities are so small, it becomes really hard.

So I think a lot of this has to do, too, with the evolution of politics on the Hill, and honestly, with social media and the high profile of individual lawmakers.

Does it define Nancy's tactics and ground game that she's always used and been so successful at as being to some extent outmoded?

Well, we'll see what happens here in the next month or so.I think she's adjusted.I think they've adjusted.I mean, some of the old-style things that you would do don't work anymore—you know, "We're going to threaten your committee assignment," or, "We're going to punish you directly in some way," which Boehner, John Boehner did to some of the revolutionaries in his conference.

But yeah, I think—I think that there is changing.But she still is managing to somehow, with this thin, paper-thin majority here.But it's been very, very difficult.And that's why this is taking so long to get this Build Back Better legislation through.

And the thing is, she still gets it done.

So far.I mean, never bet against Nancy Pelosi.That's something you hear around the Hill every day.People have started to bet against her a little bit, but she is still defying the odds.And, you know, she's using every possible weapon in her arsenal and just barely scraping through.And the nuances of this stuff, well, you can—I won't vote for a bill, but I'll vote for the rule for the bill later.I mean, you know, these are things that the public at large has to look at that and go, what are they talking about?You know, even folks like me who make a living up there are like, well, that's pretty convoluted.

But yeah—but I think we all recognize that she is nearing the end of her tenure, and she's going to pull out all the stops.

Pelosi and the Squad

Let's talk about the Squad.So the Squad comes to town in 2018, and they have a very different view of power. …Talk a little bit about the expectations of the Squad coming to town and how Pelosi differs with it, and to some extent that leads to this argument that everybody was so entranced about.

Yeah, well, they're outside players, I would call them, right, and she's the ultimate inside player.So they are playing from the outside, trying to bring pressure from the outside from their followings, right, because of the things that they think they want to accomplish.

And in a way, they're a little like the moderate Blue Dog Democrats used to be, where the Blue Dogs Democrats are the majority makers, they would be called, because these are the moderates from districts who gave them the majority.So you used to have to worry about the moderates; now you have to worry about both the moderates and the progressives, because the progressives are to the left of Nancy Pelosi on a lot of these issues.

Now, Nancy Pelosi and other people from the leadership look at these folks and say, well, you won a primary election in a super-liberal district, you know, with 15,000 or 20,000 votes, and you just cannot come in here and redraw the direction of the Democratic Party, because we have to get a majority here.

And so I think that she does see them as naïve.And I think Nancy Pelosi also, by the time she got to Congress, she had already had her children; she'd had a career.And I think there's a bit of a—it gets her back up a little bit, you know, when she hears these folks questioning her commitment when she came here when it was extremely difficult for women to get elected and achieve.And I don't think she wants to be lectured by some newer members on what it means to be a woman or what it means to be a progressive in the House.I think that she figures that she has earned her credentials there.

And as I said, she's just somebody who's trying to get it done, and she thinks that there's a lot of groups who are appealing to the—to this liberal base and this progressive base, but that's not going to constitute a majority party.

Now—but they've also had a great success.I mean, the party is much to the left of where it was when Nancy Pelosi got here, that's for sure.And, you know, when you think about the crime bill in the '90s and things like that, I mean, it's a huge difference, so—but they might not be aware of that because, you know, I'm not sure where the historical perspective lies.But I think Nancy Pelosi has found a way to sort of work with them but to also keep them a little bit at arm's length.

But during the most recent negotiation, you know, there was a group—I think it ended up being six—who didn't vote for the infrastructure bill.But most of the progressives, the members of the Progressive Caucus, came along.It took a huge lobbying campaign; it took [President] Joe Biden being on the phone; it took all these things that Nancy Pelosi was doing.But the progressives still got on board at the end.

But they did flex their power in a new way, and they also showed a willingness to stick to their guns that we hadn't seen from the progressives in the past.And I think all of us who have been around Capitol Hill for a while, we always say, "Ah, they're going to cave; they're going to cave."Well, they ultimately caved a little.They won some concessions, but they were tougher than they have been in the past.

Pelosi’s Roots

… You mentioned when she came to town in '87, she rose in power pretty quick in a time when it was an old boys' club.What was it about her?What skills, what tactics, what inner drive, whatever it was that she got from Baltimore, she got from San Francisco, what was it about this woman that allowed her to achieve the things that she did as quickly as she did?

I think it's in her DNA, right?This is just—she grew up in a political family.She saw how politics worked at the ground level in a labor-driven town where Democratic politics, you know, were probably pretty rough-and-tumble, and then goes to California.But I still think the key—and she goes to the Appropriations Committee, which is also a route to power on Capitol Hill.

But I think—and she also showed she could really raise money.And that's the key to the kingdom when it comes to the Congress, right, if you can raise money, help your colleagues get elected. …

Pelosi and Biden

Talk about the Biden agenda versus the Pelosi agenda.

Yeah, this is Joe Biden's agenda.She portrays it as Joe Biden's agenda.She embraces Joe Biden's agenda.But to me, this is Nancy Pelosi's agenda.She has been working these issues for a long time, and, you know, Joe Biden supports them, but I see him as the vessel for a lot of her ideas.

I mean, universal pre-K, expanded child tax credit, paid leave, child care help: These are all things that Nancy Pelosi sees as helping women and families in the workforce.Now, you may disagree with them, but these have been priorities with her for a long time, and she is taking this chance to get them.

She slipped a little bit at a press conference and called them the—slipped in a way that, you know, the Washington gaffe, said the truth out loud, where she called this the "culmination," I think, of her career.And I see it that way.This—she sees this as her last opportunity.She is going to put these things in place.Good thing that Joe Biden agrees with her on them, because they are holding hands and going in together. …

So when she's on the campaign telling Biden or advising Biden, "Joe, we've got to go big and fast," what had she learned from ACA, from the financial crisis, that she understands that that's the necessity.

Yeah, I think what she realizes is, you have to start out really big because it's all going to get cut down.So if you start out really big, by the time you get to the finish line, it's not going to be as big, but it's going to be pretty big.And what was it, $6 trillion that they were talking about at the beginning of this process?

So, you know, getting down to $2 trillion sounds like a big cut, but, as she told me recently in an interview, it's still a really big number, right?And I think that she recognized, one, you've got to get it done quickly—

… So I think there was a—I think a lot of people learned a lot of things from 2009-2010.The Democrats learned that they have to get it done, go as big as you can, and then when it's whittled down, you still have some achievements.The Republicans learned, you know what?Our voters reward us for fighting the Democrats on everything, so we're just going to be dead-set against everything that they're doing. …

But on these bills, how does she view the GOP, as just an obstacle to overcome?

Yes, 100% obstacle, although on the infrastructure bill, it was helpful.I mean, they passed an infrastructure bill that [Mitch] McConnell voted for.And the House Republicans have made a decision that they won't vote for anything, so she's written them off.They're not a factor with her when it comes to this bigger bill.

And, you know, if there's the occasion arises where she can maybe get a few Republican votes, she will use them to her advantage.But I think generally speaking, she sees them as very radicalized and that they're not going to cooperate.

Now, to Democrats, it seems incredible that Republicans are going to vote against, you know, investment in their states and districts or capping the cost of insulin, things like that, that just to Democrats are slam dunks.But she also says, "Vote no and take the dough," that Republicans will still say, "Oh, look at the projects that Congress passed for our districts."

But yeah, I think she sees the Republicans and Kevin McCarthy as a lost cause.Didn't she refer to him as a moron in public?I hadn't heard congressional leaders talk like that about each other. So, she's written them off.

… Speaker of the House is so powerful that … it's decided she's the one who should deal with some of the senators, like [Joe] Manchin, who are causing all the problems.Tell me the story about the baseball game in September.

Yeah.So, you know, this was a great Nancy Pelosi moment.So the congressional baseball, a pretty big event, and it's been made bigger by the fact that a couple years ago there was a shooting at the Republican practice, and a real threat.And people were seriously injured.And so it's even taken on more of a thing.

And it also was a chance for Biden to show up and, as I said, backslap with the Republicans over in the dugout.And he's yukking it up out on the field.And C-SPAN is covering this, and they see Nancy Pelosi.She's on the phone doing her Nancy Pelosi thing, right?She's, you know, I think wagging the finger and head, and you could tell she's really working somebody over.We couldn't find who out it was.And it just showed that Nancy Pelosi never stops, right?That was the takeaway from that scene.

And as it turns out, and I found out later, she was on the phone with Joe Manchin, trying to get him to go along with the higher number than he wanted to on the Build Back Better, and she was really pleading her case.

Now, she has a special relationship with Joe Manchin.You know, they're both from political families.They're both Catholics.They're both Italian.And she and Manchin had worked together on some coal miner health and retirement benefits.Manchin was very appreciative of that and gave her a statue of a coal miner to go with a statue that her father had had of a coal miner in his office.

And so I think she had credibility with Joe Manchin, and maybe a little more credibility than Chuck Schumer has with Joe Manchin.She feels she could connect with him.She told me that she sent over a note on voting rights—Joe Manchin's also in the way of Democrats on that—on a silver platter—literally a silver platter—that Sen. Robert Byrd had given her for her work helping elect Democrats in 1986.And she sent that over so Manchin could see that his—you know, the guy he reveres and he replaced, that he took Nancy Pelosi seriously, so maybe Joe Manchin should, too.

And she's also worked with Sen. [Kyrsten] Sinema, you know, who she knew from the House.She told me she knew her even before she had run for Congress from Arizona as an activist in Arizona and helped negotiate the prescription drug provisions that are in this bill with Sen. Sinema.

So she'd gotten a little bit out of her prescribed area, but I think that Sen. Schumer and President Biden agreed that that might be helpful, to have her talking to those people since she had that relationship.

You know, there's not a lot of quit in Nancy Pelosi.She will just keep going.So she was there for the baseball game, but she wasn't going to waste her time.

But what it says about her and her leadership and the way Washington views her?

Well, that she's not going to stop, that she is just determined, and she is going to work and work and work until she gets it over the finish line.And it's pretty rare that she doesn't get it over the finish line.There's been a few, and the climate change bill back in the early days of the Obama administration is one.But I think her outreach to Manchin and Sinema there is reflective of what happened to that bill.It got to the Senate; they couldn't do anything with it.She doesn't want that to happen again with the Build Back Better.She wanted to make sure that this was going to move in the Senate.

She always figures she can get it out of the House somehow, but she needed to be sure that it was still going to go somewhere in the Senate.She doesn't want her members to take a lot of useless votes that's going to cost them, because it did cost them in 2010. …

So in November, the $2.2 trillion bill gets passed through the House.What was the point of view of the Republicans and McConnell?

They were just hoping that Sinema and Manchin kill it, right?Mitch McConnell is, you know, he might not agree with Nancy Pelosi on a lot, but he's got a lot of respect for her abilities.He knows that she can pull the rabbit out of the hat when she has to.So they're just trying to beat it back, right, and do whatever they can.

Actually, a lot of what's going on in the Senate right now is just to eat up time and deny Democrats the ability to move forward on this stuff, so if you can tie them up with nominations, you know, the debt limit, things like that.

I did a story on this, actually, where the Republicans basically are just relegated to sniping from the sidelines here.There's really not much they can do until they get to a vote-a-rama in the Senate.And then, you know, they'll try and throw some bombs out there.

It's also interesting that again it looks like they've been handed a tool to beat Pelosi up with in the next elections.McConnell said something like, "This is wonderful; Pelosi's marching them right off a cliff."How will they use this against Pelosi?How will they use this against the Democrats?

Well, they'll run on it as a socialist agenda, overspending, driving up inflation.This is the progressive socialist wish list.Certainly Sen. McConnell hopes she's marching them off a cliff.The Democrats like to say, "Hey, this is what's going to save us from going over the cliff."

But they'll pound Nancy Pelosi on this, and she's been a good whipping girl, I guess, for them, instead of a whipping boy, but if she's not running again, that might change the calculation somewhat.It's hard to demonize somebody who's leaving.

But, you know, they've got a whole, just a big list of things that they'll pound them on.Today he's talking about, what is it, like a "toddler takeover."That's what he's calling the day care provisions of this.Pretty catchy. …

Sen. McConnell would much prefer, I think, that this not pass than pass and give him a weapon, because he knows that some of these things are going to get in place, and they're not going to be unable to undo them.Look at the ACA.How many times did they try to get rid of the ACA?Now it's in there for good.

And so where he likes to say, "Oh, they're shooting themselves in the foot; this is political suicide," or whatever, he'd much prefer that it not happen, I think, because then Republicans at some point have to come back and say, "Well, we're going to take away your expanded child tax credit," or, "We're going to get rid of this universal pre-K here that everybody's benefiting from."So, you know, their attacks are—there's a lot of agenda in there.

Republicans Campaign Against Pelosi

In 2010 they went after Pelosi big time.They went after Obama in certain districts, but it was more defined against Pelosi, and they spent $70 million on ads, and they had a bus traveling around the country with "Defeat Pelosi."Why has Nancy Pelosi always been such a target for the GOP?

I think there's a certain element of sexism that, you know, it might benefit them to attack her on that front; that she's easy to portray as someone out of control and doing things that people really don't support and pushing her own agenda.And people recognized her.She's the first woman speaker of the House.She has a high profile.So, you know, much easier to attack her than Steny Hoyer, I guess.

And she has put herself out there, and—but she's been willing to do that.The Democrats don't think it's all that effective to demonize her, but, you know, in concert with other messaging, it has—takes some toll.

But I think one of the reasons they attack her is because she's pretty good damn good at what she's been doing.She's been succeeding.

Pelosi’s Legacy

And her legacy? …Is this the last of her type of legislator that we will see?

I don't think it's the last because I think, you know, Nancy Pelosi has contributed to a growth of women in Congress, right, compared to when she first got here.Women are much more of a force in the House and the Senate.

I don't know if there's ever going to be anyone who gets the nuances as well as she does.I mean, she is—she's a machine when it comes to going out and getting these votes.But she's taught other women these lessons, too.

I mean, her legacy, just being, of course, being the first woman speaker of the House—those pictures the day, the first time she was sworn as speaker were pretty remarkable.And that's a legacy in itself. …I mean, the ACA—you know, it's Obamacare care, but it's also Nancy Pelosicare.It couldn't have happened without her.

There's a lot of pieces of legislation over the years that couldn't have happened without her.And the bailout in 2008, that was—she was key to that.The COVID rescue bills.

I think that her legacy as someone who, you know, knew how to deliver, figured out a way to do it in an extremely complicated and polarized environment, some of it aimed directly at her.But she's come through more than she didn't.

You know, there's three buildings up there named for speakers, right?Cannon, Longworth and Rayburn.I'm sure they'll be looking for something to name for her at some point.

Lastly, is there a favorite Pelosi story of yours?

Well, I mean, I've had several encounters and run-ins with Nancy Pelosi over certain things, but there's one that kind of drives her staff nuts.

One day we were—I was doing a piece on offshore oil drilling, and she's like, "Come into the office."I ended up going to the office to talk with her.And, you know, she's crazy for ice cream and chocolate.And so we sit down, and we get Dove Bars, and I pick mine up and start eating it, and she uses a knife and fork to cut up her Dove Bar.And that has stuck with her ever since.I told somebody, and then it became, "Nancy Pelosi eats her ice cream with a knife and fork."And she maybe only did it that one time, but that stuck with her.

There was another one where—

So she held that against you?

No, it was just more like, it wasn't holding it against me.It was more like that became such a trope in stories about her, and they're like, "Jeez, she just did it that one time."

But that's the kind—she is an extremely well-mannered person, you know.And she's just like—there's a little bit of that old-school—I don't know, it's not sophistication, but just etiquette and good manners about her that that may be a fading art.You just don't see somebody like that. …

Her relationship with presidents, going against Bush on the war early on and some of the stuff that she said about him.But every president that she's dealt with, she has dealt with—she does not suffer fools, even if they're presidents.

She considers herself an equal there.In fact, and she's a little bit more of the old-school speaker where, you know, they considered themselves the power.Presidents come and go; speakers are here for a little bit longer.At least they definitely want to be.

The Bush thing, she—well, it was interesting.Probably not valuable to you, but her and Bob Graham (D-Fla.) were the chairs of the Intel Committee at that time.Both of them voted against the Iraq War, the people who knew about it.And when the Democrats win in 2006, I remember I was called over to the White House, you know, and we're doing briefing on the Iraq War and what the Democrats are doing.And one of the top White House officials at that time said, "Oh, seriously, the Democrats.Pelosi can't think they're actually going to be able to push back on this war; they're not going to be able to stay together on that."And I said, "Are you crazy?That's what she ran to do, and she's going to do it."And she did it.

And so she's not intimidated by the White House.And I think with Trump it was sort of—I think she was a little forlorn, right, that it had come to the point in this country that Donald Trump was the president.I think that was very discouraging to her.And she at that time thought, you know, "It's up to me to do something about it."

She takes that obligation pretty seriously.

Yeah.She's—you know, it's an amazing career, really. …Hate her or love her, disagree, agree, it's still an amazing career.

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