The FRONTLINE Interviews

Christine Pelosi

Pelosi's Daughter

Christine Pelosi is an attorney and political strategist. She has served as chair of the Women's Caucus of the California Democratic Party and has been elected five times to the Democratic National Committee. She is the daughter of Nancy Pelosi and the author of The Nancy Pelosi Way.

The following interview was conducted by FRONTLINE's Jim Gilmore on Dec. 13, 2021. It has been edited for clarity and length.

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Nancy Pelosi’s Early Life

What did your mom learn from her mother and father, her life in Baltimore, that prepared her for the very partisan politics of Washington, D.C. …?

Well, when we were little, both my grandparents were alive, so every summer we would go to Baltimore and then down Ocean City, as they put it.And we would see my grandparents both in Little Italy, Baltimore, and in Ocean City, Maryland, so we saw them in their neighborhood with the same people who knew my mother as Little Nancy or Miss Nancy and my grandmother as Big Nancy, first lady of Baltimore, and we also saw them in a more relaxed setting, down Ocean City, enjoying the tall tales of my grandfather.

He was very, very outgoing, my grandfather, Thomas D'Alesandro Jr., incredibly outgoing.And my grandmother Nancy was more reserved in his presence, but alone she was very much the powerhouse.And so when we were growing up, we'd always get these great, great, great stories from my grandfather about, oh, you know, he'd tell a story about the time that he saw FDR, and they were in a motorcade, and a woman wanted to come say hello to the president, but the president said, "I'm not really ready to talk to her," so Tommy waltzed the woman around the presidential motorcade. Or the time he went into the Oval Office and said, "If the boys from the neighborhood could see me now."He always had a story for every occasion.He was very, very outgoing.

And my grandmother was a tour de force behind the scenes.And she would say—the kind of person who would, could walk the blocks of Little Italy, and she would tell you who had been a faithful foot soldier in the Democratic Party.You know, she was, in some ways, the tough one behind the scenes, so that my grandfather could be more gregarious out in person.And she had her moccasin army of women who just ruled the neighborhood.

So my mom would talk about being a young girl growing up, with her father, the mayor, from when she started first grade to when she left for college.And in their house, when someone would call on the phone or knock on the door, my mom, from a very young age, would know how to get somebody a hot meal, a job, how to get them into public housing, how to get somebody in jail or out of jail, depending on the circumstance.And then she would also write down what they had done for the person, or they would look up somebody in their "favor file," who might know how to give a person a job or send somebody a meal.

So it was always this idea that you paid it forward; that when you got a favor done for you, you were expected to pay that favor forward to somebody else.And that sort of cooperation was something that my mom learned at a very, very, very young age.And they learned that Democrats were there to help people and that Roosevelt Democrats were there as part of the New Deal to make people's lives better, so she always had that element of public service.

But it was her father who was the politician and grooming her brothers to run for office.And it was her mother, my grandmother Nancy D'Alesandro, who really taught her the value of public service and said to her: "You should go pursue your dreams.Do what you want to do."And so when my mother wanted to go to Washington, D.C., for college, my grandfather said, "No, over my dead body," and my grandmother apparently said, "Tom, that can be arranged."So my mother went off to college in Washington, D.C.

It was very different back then, and there are stories told of your grandmother wanting to go to law school … having some interest in real estate deals.She was a very intelligent, powerful woman, and to some extent, her husband held her back.That period of time held back all women from finding their dreams.What did your mom learn from that?

… My grandmother in some ways had been held back by the times.She had matriculated at the University of Maryland law school before my mother was born, and then when one of my uncles died, she had to go home and take care of the other children.And when I passed the bar in 1993 and I sent my grandmother an invitation to my swearing-in as a California attorney, she wrote back and told me how proud she was that I'd accomplished what she could not 55 years before.

So in the back of her mind, she never forgot that that was her dream.And to see her own daughter rise to be the top lawmaker in the country, when she herself couldn't even go to law school, was something that would have amazed my grandmother.She lived long enough to see my mother go to Congress.

And although the newspapers all said, "Nancy Pelosi followed her father to Congress," sure, if you mean 3,000 miles, 30 years apart, she did technically follow her father in. But really, she followed her mother in pursuit of the law, in pursuit of public service.And I think a lot of women of Nancy Pelosi's generation were living out the unlived lives and unrealized dreams of their mothers and really carrying those dreams forward.And that's something that my mom has always taught us, that you carry the dreams of people who sacrificed so you could accomplish things that your grandparents could only dream of.

Did she ever talk about that, the fact that Grandmom never was able to accomplish the things she might have, and I'm going to, and you guys are going to?

Well, the way that my mother put it, her mother was an entrepreneur.She was a legal adviser without benefit of a law license.But she was an adviser; she was an entrepreneur; she was an inventor.She led that moccasin army to run the campaigns of her husband and then her son, my Uncle Tommy, for mayor of Baltimore.And it was very clear for my mom at a young age, when the people around her suggested that her brothers go into public service and that my mother be a nun, that she had in her corner her mother, suggesting otherwise.

Obviously for me, I'm really glad.We wouldn't even be here today, had my mom become a nun, so I'm glad she didn't take that advice.

But there was always this consciousness of: Be aware of your opportunities and take your opportunities that other generations of women, starting with your grandmother, sacrificed for.So I know that, as far as this young generation is concerned, all of the—all of us feel a need to pay it forward.

And when we became parents, my mom would say to us, "You know, think about the opportunities for your daughter that were not possible for your grandmother and make sure that, you know, she gets a good education so that she can make her own choices."

Nancy Pelosi’s Early Political Career

When she runs in '87, did you know … that she had been thinking about this?She was certainly involved in politics up to that point, but what was that like, when she made that decision?

Well, keep in mind, we had been working with my mom as volunteers from when we were very, very little.So our house resembled her house in Baltimore, with a couple of exceptions.One, she was an in-party office, and so we didn't have the same level of public scrutiny, and she didn't have 700,000 bosses who could be knocking at the door at any given moment, as she does now as a member of Congress.So as an elected party official, she had us. All five of us would pile in the car and drive all over Northern California.We went to, you know, Veterans Day parades, and we saw the jumping frogs of Calaveras County that Mark Twain wrote about.We went up in through rural California, down through gold country, down to Southern California.Wherever there was a meeting of Democratic Party officials at a barbecue or a fundraiser or a veterans parade, we were there, all five of us loaded up in the car, and my mom driving us around.

So she was the key volunteer.We would stuff envelopes.We would ZIP sort the California Democratic Party newsletter in our living room, so that they could save money in the days before bulk mailing.

So we had always seen our mom as someone who lifted up other people, and she never, ever wanted to run for public office herself.

And in the early '80s, our congressman, John Burton, announced that he was quitting Congress, and his brother Phil really wanted my mother to run.She said absolutely not.And then a year later, Phil Burton died, and his wife, Sala, ran for his seat.And we all volunteered on Sala's campaign; we kids did, and my mom did.

And then in '87, when Sala was dying, she said to my mother, "I want you to run for my seat," in the fall of 1988.Now, Sala had just been sworn in, so this is January of 1987; she's been sworn in at home because she's ill with cancer.And she asks my mother, "Would you run?"And my mother asked all of us, and as the lore is told, my sister Alexandra said, "Mother, get a life."And my mother did.

And so I actually came home and spent my junior year of college working on my mom's campaign, because I'd worked for Sala Burton; I'd worked for Phil Burton.I knew the territory; I knew the grassroots.So some people have a junior year abroad; I had a junior semester at home, in what was then the 12th Congressional District, watching my mom transform from the PTA mom, the volunteer mom, the volunteer in politics, the party official, to the elected official.

And it's quite a change.And it was also quite a shock for us, because all these people that we had been giving fundraisers for and we had, you know, stuffed and sealed envelopes for their fundraisers, and we had passed around canapes as little kids volunteering in the house, suddenly they were all—a whole bunch of people were running for Congress, and some of them were criticizing her for not knowing the issues.And it was like, well, wait a second, she knew all the issues when she was putting on events for you.She certainly knows the issues as a mother of five.Who better to know about child care, education, health care, the environment than a mom of five kids?

So it was interesting to see that you learn who your friends are when you run for office, and you learn who believes in you.And when Nancy Pelosi first ran for Congress, she was really, even though she had been involved in party politics for a long time, she was not part of the politics establishment and was an underdog, which made her victory all the more satisfying.

When she does get to Washington, she rises up the power ladder pretty quickly.What she's dealing with … is very much of an old boys club.How does she navigate the boys' club?How is she treated?And how does she think about that?

Throughout my mom's entire career, she's always been underestimated, and she welcomes the challenge, because she knows her value, she knows her worth, and she knows what she can accomplish.And so whether it was the old boys network in 1987 or, frankly, the twice-impeached former guy in 2017, their underestimation of her and the mischaracterization of the strengths she brings has always been something that she's worn as a badge of honor.

And one thing that she has taught her daughters and has taught a lot of women around the country is: Don't value yourself based on what the marketplace is going to give you, because it was designed for men, mostly white men, who have a pecking order, and you're not in it.

So just understand that.It's nothing to take personally.Just understand that the system has not yet been set up for women to be helping other women.And that is something that Nancy Pelosi set about to change when she first goes to Washington in Congress, and she and Barbara Boxer and Barbara Kennelly are among the 13 Democratic women and the 12 Republican women in Congress.Imagine that: 25 women out of 435 members of Congress.That's a very, very, very small group.Easy to get talked over.Easy to get ignored.Easy to get second-guessed and one-upped all the time.That's just the nature of it.But she made a decision that she wanted company, and she wanted more women running for office.

And in a lot of ways, I look at the wave of women who ran in 2018, and they were women who stared out like Nancy Pelosi did, as moms pushing babies in strollers and being active in their communities and having the bravery and the courage and the audacity to say: "I'm going to be a member of Congress, even though I haven't sat in all of those other electoral chairs.I will change what you think power looks like, by virtue of the representation that I bring and the results that I bring home."

And so I think, in a lot of ways, the women running for office now are running, in part, because we have changed what we think a person in power looks like.When Nancy Pelosi got to Congress, it looked like a white male.Now, women and men all over the country see that power looks different; it looks a lot more like the rest of the United States of America.

Nancy Pelosi and Motherhood

In your book you talk about this, the way she handles her caucus.She's famous for the fact of holding the caucus together and getting the votes.… She had learned a lot as a mother and grandmother.

In the 1960s, Nancy and Paul Pelosi had five kids within six years and one week.So my mom was pregnant for most of the '60s, and driving carpool for more—most of the '70s, and volunteering in politics for most of the '80s, until we were in college and she went to Congress.

So for her, multitasking was key.And when you think about having five children in six years, all those diapers to change, all those lunches to make, all that work to do, you really—if you start to think about it, you'd probably just lose your mind, so you have to think one day, one meal at a time and always anticipate what's coming next.

So from when we were really, really little, we folded our own laundry.From when we were really, really little, we would—you know, every day would start the night before, because after dinner, we would clear the table; we would set the table for breakfast.As recently as last Thanksgiving, my mom, the night of Thanksgiving, was setting the table for breakfast Friday morning so that everybody would be ready to go the next day.

So days would begin with the breakfast table already preset and then the food setup assembly line, for us to make our own lunches.And then we would get our hair done; the girls would get our hair braided.And we would line up—the four girls would line up to get our hair braided by our mom.She would have pressed our Catholic school uniforms, given us a dime for bus fare, and we would be out the door.

… So when you have any number of children, but certainly when you have five, every day, every hour is an exercise in coalition politics, because at any given moment, it could be—it could be four on one, three on two, two on the other three, five against the parents, or every person for themselves.

Nancy Pelosi and President Bush

That's the history portion of our interview.Let's go through four presidents now and some key points and how you saw your mom act or react.… We'll start with President [George W.] Bush.She's whip in 2001.Iraq becomes a very big issue for her and the Democrats.Was it surprising to you to see your mom take on a very popular president and at that point still a popular war?Why did she do that, and were you surprised by her actions during those years?

When we were growing up, we would not only protest the Vietnam War, but we would do activities with veterans.So from the start, she was always someone who promoted peace but also very much respected veterans.Her brothers were in the Army.My cousin was in the Navy.So she always had a profound respect, patriotic respect for those who served.Her uncle died at the Battle of the Bulge and had a Purple Heart.

So understanding that for a lot of quiet Americans who grew up in the World War II generation and the generation after that, my mother's generation, everybody was in the service, it wasn't something that you bragged about.In fact, if anything, it was something that people didn't talk about enough, when it came to shell-shock or what would know, would consider to be PTSD or traumatic brain injury.

So I think that one of the things that happened after 9/11 was so politicized and there was such a strong resentment that lot of quiet Americans had that—suddenly they had to proselytize their faith and proselytize their military service in a way that they had never done it before.I mean, we're Catholic.It's "Rend your hearts, not your clothes." That's the Scripture that we learned.And if you, again, if you're bragging about giving to charity, then you're not really giving to charity.If you're bragging about being a pious person, then you're probably not a holy person.

And so it was—I think it was really deeply offensive that, in order to be considered a patriot, you had to support a particular war.She had opposed the first Gulf War in her early days in Congress, with Father Bush, and was very concerned when it came to Iraq that there was going to be hand-to-hand combat on the streets of Baghdad.She was pretty much laughed at on national television when she gave an interview talking about that.

And keep in mind, when she wanted to establish a 9/11 Commission, she was called anti-American by people in the Bush White House who have since reinvented themselves as "Never Trumpers."But I never forget the messaging that they were putting about that.

… So you can't really look at Iraq without looking at 9/11 and the profound mistake that the country made to take our eye off Afghanistan and turn it onto Iraq, and not only that, but to vilify and swift boat and attack anyone who was against the war.

So Nancy Pelosi wasn't just up against George Bush.She was up against the Foxification of the war effort.She was up against people who every day were calling her a terrorist and, by the way, were looking at people that she was trying to help be reelected in the House and the Senate, like Max Cleland [D-Ga.], someone who had given three limbs for our country in Vietnam but was compared to Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden because he supported the right of workers to unionize at the Department of Homeland Security.

So what I saw with Nancy Pelosi taking on George W. Bush in forcing him, in a bipartisan way, forcing him to have a 9/11 Commission to look at what happened, in pushing for a majority of Democrats in Congress to oppose the war of choice in Iraq, in standing up as the senior Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, along with Sen. [Robert] Graham of Florida, who was the senior Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee that said the evidence does not match the threat, and to also insist that our veterans, who had no choice but to go, this new generation of military members, and these veterans who were coming out, got the services that they needed.

Those were some powerful days.And I think that they've also informed a lot of her work with the twice-impeached former president, with respect to the accountability that we must have in our intelligence and how, if we politicize our intelligence, we are really harming the country.

… It's very true, the fact that the right-wing media savagely attacked her, called her a traitor, went after her personally in very vicious ways.Rush Limbaugh was endlessly going after her at this point.What's the effect on the family of that? …

Well, it's horrible to see your mother attacked like that.It's horrible to see anybody attacked for their patriotism and for their public service.The politics of personal destruction really does take a toll on people.And we learned early on something that, you know, I've taught my daughter, Bella, that in politics, as in life, you have first-name friends and last-name friends, and it's OK to have both, but you have to know the difference.

There are people who like you just because you're a Pelosi; there are people who will be nice to you, to your face, just because your family has prominence.But there are also people who are going to be really mean to you just because you're a Pelosi, or who are going to call you or your mother or your grandmother terrible, terrible things because you're a Pelosi.And then you have your first-name friends who love you for you and would do anything for you.

And it's no secret that I would walk through a fire for my mother anytime, and as the kids say, ride or die with Mom, always.And that's true in politics.I never thought, growing up as a young volunteer and then later as an activist and organizer, that I would literally be sitting on the phone with candidates from coast to coast saying: "OK, now you're going to get swift boated about Nancy Pelosi.Here's how we're going to answer that question."

It's ridiculous.And it's a conversation I would never have to have if my father was the speaker and not my mother.The sexism is real.It is violent.I don't even answer my own phone because of the death and rape threats that I get from people because my last name is Pelosi.

So I think that watching my mother's toughness at that and watching her say: "OK, well, now we have to be operational about that.We can't agonize; we have to organize." There's no point in saying to her, "People are saying mean things about you."She knows that.She's not going to look in the eyes of a hungry child or someone who needs health care or someone who needs public education and say, "Well, they're being mean to me, so I'm not going to help you."Nancy Pelosi would never do that.

So there's nobody tougher—nobody tougher—than Nancy Pelosi when it comes to staring down the politics of personal destruction, because she knows her purpose; she knows her why.And nothing's going to stop her.And her strength gives us strength, as her children, because we know that she really is indestructible.She really is impervious to that.So we could be angry on her behalf, but it wouldn't do us any good to tell her that, unless we came to her with a plan and said: "Here's the latest attack.Here's what we think you should do about it, and let's just go forward."

But she would say: "Live your own lives.Make your friends, and be friends with people who love you for who you are," because, yes, Nancy Pelosi is this very sweet, actually culturally conservative grandmother.She's also best friends with her college roommates and gets together with them constantly, still, 60 years later, these long friendships.

So she knows who her first-name friends are.She knows who her true friends are.So these other attacks don't hurt her.But they do concern her, as far as what happens to the woman who wants to run for office now, who doesn't have the same sort of fortitude that Nancy Pelosi does.What happens to the woman of color who's going to be even more viciously attacked than a white woman candidate will be?What structures can we build up around her to make sure that the next woman and the next woman and the woman after her are going to be strong enough to build a community around them, so that they can have the sustenance they need when they're under this very personal and vicious and violent attack?

Groundbreaking Leadership

When Congressman [and former Speaker of the House John] Boehner [R-Ohio] hands her the gavel when she becomes speaker in 2006, I believe you're there with your kids.Talk a little bit about that moment.… What was that like to be in there, and what were you thinking as you watched your mom and all those kids up there?

Well, it seemed to us that by the fall of 2006, that the tide had turned.And I was traveling at that point all over the country working with AFSCME [American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees] and our congressional candidates' boot camps, so we knew we had a lot of contenders who were going to win.And it looked very possible that we were going to win the House, because while the Washington, D.C., party committees were looking for people to fire and, you know, engaging support against vulnerable Republicans, I had been out with the grassroots, looking for people to hire and mobilizing volunteers.So we had a good sense that victory was coming.

And so when my mom won, she said: "You know what I'm going to do?I'm going to bring all the children up there with me."And so the sergeant-at-arms said, "Well, you can't do that."She said: "Why not?The House rules say that if you're under 13, you could be on the House floor.It doesn't say what part of the floor you can be on."And they said, "Well, no one's done it before."She said, "Well, I'm going to do it."

So she took the oath of office with my niece and nephews, but then she invited all the other children up there with her.And what was great was, not only that here's the first woman speaker of the House getting sworn in with children, but also it wasn't just her own grandchildren; it was other people's kids who were zipping up there, very excited.A couple of the members told me afterwards that their children felt that they were sworn into Congress, too, and one of them had a stuffy, and the stuffy is also now a member of the Congress.

So the members of Congress really loved that, and it was a very powerful moment.Things had changed, and forever there was going to be a different kind of leadership and a different possibility for boys and girls, for children, as to what power looks like.

The Financial Crisis

The 2008 financial crisis: It's a turning point for the country; it's a turning point for politics; it's a turning point for your mother, it seems.It's a point where bipartisan action was taken.The attitude was, we have to get through this together for the country; we're going to hold hands and jump off the cliff.… She watches the first TARP [Troubled Assets Relief Program] bill go down, because Boehner can't find the votes that he had promised, while your mother can, even though the Republicans have the White House, and the Republicans promised what they could do, and they couldn't do it.So what's the lesson learned—that your mom learns? …

Well, two things happened with the TARP vote.The first was that the Republicans did not deliver their votes for their own president.And remember, at the time, Barack Obama and John McCain were neck and neck in the presidential election.McCain suspends his campaign to fly to Washington to be part of a meeting with the House and Senate Democrats and Republicans and President Bush and Vice President Cheney, and John McCain says he has a plan that they should all—they should all be a part of.

So you would think, their president is asking them for support; their presidential nominee, to hold the White House, is asking them for support.They are really neck and neck in a lot of these Senate seats, and certainly in the race for the White House.And yet they still did not deliver.

And then what happened?The market crashed, and it was only when the market crashed that they were able to go back and convince some more Democrats to come along.The Republicans still didn't deliver everything that they promised.

… When Nancy Pelosi's credibility was on the line, and when the economy was on the line, her caucus saw the market crash, as she said it would, and that's when they came back and more of them said, "OK, I'm going to vote for this, even though I don't like it, even though I'm bailing out a Republican president."And frankly it's a lesson that we take into the Biden presidency. When you have votes to lift the debt ceiling, and 90% of the debt or more was actually incurred under the previous Republican administration,Democrats still have to do the right thing and pay the debts of the country. Pay the full faith and credit of the United States of America so that the economy doesn't crash all over Main Street.

So I think the lesson is, first of all, you can only depend on your own votes.You can only depend on your own votes.If somebody says they're delivering other people, you can't trust that.You have to have what Nancy Pelosi calls the speaker's secret whip list that she won't reveal to anyone.If someone asks her to keep a secret, she puts it in the vault; she doesn't tell any of us.And there are many people who end up voting in ways that other people find surprising because they didn't ask, they didn't whip, and they didn't weave, and they didn't do that with a sense of integrity, the way Nancy Pelosi does.

The other lesson is, don't tell.A lot of people love to tell war stories down at the bar or around the water cooler about how we got this vote and how we got that vote, and Nancy Pelosi doesn't ever do that.

Nancy Pelosi, President Obama and the Affordable Care Act

Many of those lessons she brings with her still as speaker when President Obama is elected.… She and Obama seem to have a bit of a different point of view about how to work with the GOP.She's learned a lot of lessons from TARP.She also knows that when you have the votes, use them to accomplish the things you want to accomplish.… So talk a little about the dynamics of that relationship, specifically in the conversations they had about how to deal with the GOP.

Well, Barack Obama came in, and a lot of people thought—I don't know why they thought it, but they did—that we were suddenly going to be post-racial and post-partisan.Now, I knew, as the daughter of the first woman speaker and a very proud partisan Democrat, we weren't suddenly post-sexist.In fact, we were more sexist, because here there was a woman with a gavel and power threatening people.

And we also knew that because we had worked a lot with, actually, the late Rich Trumka of the AFL-CIO, working with a lot of retirees to try to elect Barack Obama.And for people that had never had a Black drill sergeant or loan officer or supervisor or governor or senator, to suddenly elect a Black president was a very, very big deal.And so Rich Trumka and Nancy Pelosi had done a lot of work in blue-collar America, blue-collar Democratic communities to say, "It's time for a new day, and it's time for leadership."

And so I think that, in some ways, because Nancy Pelosi had become speaker before Barack Obama had become president, she knew what it was like, because she was the first who wasn't a white male who suddenly had national power.And that was different.I say "suddenly," because it came as a shock to many that there was a woman who was controlling a big part of the economic decisions of the country, and they weren't quite prepared for that.

And so then to suddenly have an African American president and a woman speaker at the same time, some people definitely had a short circuit there.And the right wing really went after both of them.

And so between the birthers and the racists who went after Barack Obama, and the right wing who had been always fundraising off Nancy Pelosi—and before her, Hillary Clinton; and before her, Ted Kennedy—you know, there's always somebody, right, you know—there was a lot there.

And so at the same time there were many people who thought, well, Barack Obama, it's going to be different; he's going to be post-partisan because he's extending a hand of friendship to Republicans.And the experience that Nancy Pelosi had had was, that's a good idea, but at a certain point, you have to take the vote, because remember, they promised the TARP to their own president, to their own speaker, to their own presidential candidate and didn't deliver.So if they didn't deliver for Bush, Boehner and McCain, what makes you think they're going to deliver for Obama?They might, but they might not.

And as a practical matter, when you have somebody who understands that power is perishable and you have to use it, and someone else who's coming in and saying, "Well, if I build consensus with some of the most conservative Democrats, that will attract some of the most progressive Republicans," that was the deal that the Obama White House was trying to make, when it came to the Recovery Act.

But in the end, that's not what had happened in politics.And I think, to some degree, it was because there is a strong dichotomy between Washington, D.C., Republicans and American Republicans.

The Republicans who get elected as mayor or in the state legislatures or to other office, until quite recently when Trump took over the entire Republican Party, were far more moderate than the Republicans who got elected to office in Washington, D.C. And so there—I think there was a natural tension there, that the Republicans in Washington, D.C., were not the same kinds of Republicans in Springfield, Illinois, with whom Barack Obama could play poker and negotiate an ethics bill, right, when he was a state senator, which is groundbreaking work, but Washington, D.C., works different than Springfield, Illinois.

And so I think that that was somewhat of a contrast in expectation.I think the country was hoping that there would be this post-racial environment, but it really actually didn't happen.And that was a deep disappointment. …

When [former Sen.] Scott Brown [R] in Massachusetts—there's the famous moment where her advice about going big, going fast came true, that they didn't go fast enough, and they lost the super majority in the Senate.And there's a debate in the White House about whether we go small to get this through.… And she lays down the line that says: "Well, if you want to go small, I'm not with you.If you want to go big, I'm there, I will bring the House along.If you want to go small, you're on your own."Talk about that moment and what that said about your mother.

Well, if we go to the moment that Scott Brown won in Massachusetts, people are chanting not his name, they're chanting "41."Were chanting, “41, 41, 41.”Because he's the 41st senator in the Republican Party.And therefore, he can break the super majority, he can break the filibuster.And so, that's what they were doing.

So they come back to Washington, and everybody says, well, that's it, healthcare is over.And Nancy Pelosi says: “Wait a second, we've been trying this for a generation.You're going to tell me, because one guy won in one state that suddenly we’re doing kiddie care?No, we're not going to do that.We're going to do what we set out to do, and we're going to do as much as we set out to do.”

And the other element, too, that you had all these people who had been working—andyes, there was the right-wing Foxification, right-wing radio that was vilifying families, vilifying families for coming forward and telling their stories.But Nancy Pelosi had also helped build up the faces of care network. The people who were telling their stories and getting support from the patient community say: "I need this care.I need this care."

And there was no way that Nancy Pelosi was going to go to them and say, “Well, we lost one race in Massachusetts, so therefore you can't get the healthcare that you deserve, that we fought for.”Now, we didn't get everything we wanted; we should have had a public option.That should have happened; it didn't.But we needed to get the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act across the finish line.It absolutely had to happen. …

Nancy Pelosi and President Trump

[Let's talk about the 2018 red-coat meeting.] What did America learn about your mom on that day?And when you saw the video of that meeting … what were you thinking?… What did you learn about your mother and what did America learn about your mother on that day?

Well, the day started out like so many others: a meeting at the White House to try to negotiate with the president of the United States.I knew she was going.And I knew my mom was going to the White House and that she and [then Senate Minority Leader] Chuck Schumer [D-N.Y.] were going to try to negotiate with Donald Trump, with respect to the fact that he wanted to shut down the government if he couldn't get a wall that, by the way, Mexico was supposed to pay for.

I mean, that was the basic outline of the meeting.The question was: What are the holidays going to be like for these workers, for these subcontractors, for—a lot of them are working for—as essential workers.Many are veterans.What's going to happen to them in this fight?

And so they go to the White House, and strangely—I was watching the meeting, and I thought it was just going to be a photo spray, and then they were going to have the cameras removed, and then, you know, a couple hours later we'd watch and see what happened when they came out.But Trump kept the media in the room.So that was the first thing that I thought: Well, this is interesting, that he's going to have this meeting for us all to watch.Like, let's tune in.

The second thing that I noticed was that you had this strange dynamic, because you have Schumer and Trump sort of New York jawboning each other.You have [then Vice President Mike] Pence just sort of sitting there … waiting to be beamed away; wants to be anywhere but there, doesn't really say anything.And then you have Nancy Pelosi, and she's wearing a dress, which just from a woman's perspective, just as it catches your eye, it's interesting that the guys are sort of chatting amongst themselves or not talking to her, and there she is.And then to justify ignoring the woman in the conversation, Trump says, "Well, Nancy can't really talk that now because she doesn't really have all the votes yet for speaker."

And so when she said, "Do not characterize the strength I bring," first of all, I thought, well, that's classic Mom.Of course, why is he underestimating her again?What a stupid thing to say.What a stupid thing to do.I mean, it's a gimme for her.I mean, talk about a, you know, hardball that she just hit a home run with.

But second of all, he admitted that it was going to be his shutdown.And usually, when you're the head of the federal government, as the president is, you're saying: "I'm trying to keep it open; you all are the ones stopping me from running the government.You are going to ruin Christmas."Instead, he was willing to say he was going to be the one to shut down the government if he couldn't have his way.So that was a very, very, very poor decision on his part.

So that was the first part, was, you know, that comment just went viral, and it was like every woman who's ever been talked down to or ignored, or talked over in a meeting before—and he was even acknowledging why he wasn't going to listen to what she had to say, because … she wasn't the speaker yet, so why should he listen, right?That was his view of things.

And her view of things was, well, wait, I'm the leader of the House Democrats.We just won the majority.Your life is going to change very significantly in a month, so understand what's going on here.You need to be making a deal with us.

And so for me, it was very powerful to watch my mother take on the president.It was very powerful, as a Democrat, to watch the Democratic woman leader assert herself.And it was very telling that Trump thought he could just jawbone Chuck Schumer, New York-style, completely cut out Nancy Pelosi and the entire majority in the House, incoming majority in the House, and that that somehow was going to look good on camera.It looked terrible on camera.

But he was only worried about being the tough guy.You know, she's not some contestant on <i>The Apprentice</i>.She's the incoming speaker of the House of Representatives, and she's the leader of the House Democrats who just got a big victory, and he didn't treat her that way.

So the meeting was amazing.Then the second part was, I thought, OK, well, let's wait for her to come out, because when they leave the White House, people usually stop by the camera banks and talk.Maybe she would, maybe she wouldn't; I didn't know.

So when I saw her come out and put the sunglasses on and put the coat on and just sweep—sweep up there, I thought, boy, she really just left them in the dust.

And it was such a powerful moment because she became an instant meme.

So I called her, because I was watching on TV when she got in her car.So I called her and I'm like, "Mom, you're an internet meme!"She said, "What are you talking about?"I said: "No, you're an internet meme.You are—what you said in the meeting about him not characterizing you—people are already saying they want to have that tattooed on their arm.They're already turning it into T-shirts.And then your coat.Your coat already has a Twitter account.Like people—you know, you and the coat."And she just—you know.

And the funny thing is, we had actually shopped for that coat together for Barack Obama's second inauguration.And so I knew it was an old coat; I knew exactly how old it was.It was from December of 2012.So it was six years old, and she had pulled it out of the closet and thought: It's clean, it's warm, so I'll wear the coat.That's what happened in the morning.

So you never know when you're about to make history.You never know when you're about to have a powerful moment.But as Nancy Pelosi would say, be ready.And she was ready. …

Nancy Pelosi and the Squad

Talk a little bit about that debate that took place between AOC [U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.], between the Squad and your mom, and what you took away from that.

Well, there are many, many Democrats who got elected in 2018; and many, many of them were women, people of color; and many, many, many of them were on board with making results and making things happen.So let's be clear about that.The vast majority of the people who run were—ran and won, were very progressive and very good at what they do.

And people like [U.S. Rep] Lauren Underwood [D-Ill.], the youngest Black woman in Congress, who had a promise broken by her member of Congress: He said he would vote to protect people with preexisting conditions.He broke his promise; she ran against him.She won in a heavily white primary and then in the general election, and has been an incredibly valued member. Very, very solid, and again, as I said, won at a very young age, and really some beautiful exchanges there, when you look at the intergenerational nature of the people who won in 2018 and 2020.

So I think that you have—it's easy to look at handfuls of people rather than looking at the entire kaleidoscope of the caucus.And it's unfair, I think, to some people to presume that they don't stand for other people, and that they aren't cooperative, or that they don't think that having an outside message is important.

Nancy Pelosi has 7 million Twitter followers.Obviously, she knows the importance of speaking to them and speaking to them in an interactive way.And again, she talks to the grassroots once a week, to make sure she's hearing directly from the people, the people who do a lot of the electing and frankly do a lot of the volunteer work in Democratic districts, to turn swing districts Democratic and to hold those.

So I think that when we look at what power is about, yes, for some people coming to Washington, D.C., and having to sit down and do the work and deliver is—it can be a culture shock.It's new.It's different.Working in government isn't necessarily easy or fun or glamorous.It's certainly different than when you're out there campaigning.And it's hard to do particularly in these very, very partisan times and in these times of COVID where—when you get your energy from being around other people, and you suddenly can't do that anymore, it changes the way all of us have to campaign, the way all of us have to interrelate.I think that's really important.

And the other element, too, is that, again, are you sending a message, or are you passing legislation?If you're there to send a message, send a message, but understand that the currency of the realm is the vote.You have to have the vote.Otherwise you get nothing passed.

So if you want to send a message, you can either try to put it in the part of the larger conversation and the larger message the way that many people have—some from the Squad, some from other places, put together, for example, the Momnibus focusing on maternal health, but particularly Black women's maternal health, parts of which have been signed as standalone legislation, a lot of which is in the Build Back Better agenda.And in some cases people were trying to send a message, and they voted no, didn't vote with the Democratic Party, voted with Republicans, because they were trying to send a different kind of message to the folks at home.

So I think that, if you're an institutionalist like Nancy Pelosi and you're counting votes, you say, "Where's my majority?," because that's the vote that matters, right?How do I get to 218?Assuming the full House, how do I get to 218, and how do I bring everybody there?And how can different people have a part of that conversation?

But Washington, D.C., is full of squads and gangs and task forces and badass women and you name it. There's different groups.The Senate has the most of the gangs. It's usually the Gang of Four, the Gang of Eight, the Gang of This, the Gang of That.The White House has its own power base, and then you have the House, which has its various caucuses and concerns.

So again, what Nancy Pelosi would tell you is, there's a kaleidoscope of policy.There's a kaleidoscope of politics going back to those group dynamics of the kids, where it's four on one or three on two or two on three, or five on Mom, or everyone for themselves.Those group dynamics change within a bill.They change within an omnibus bill. …

It's complicated.

Well, and the media can't wait to see women fight each other.So let's just be clear: If you look at the language that is used,"the Squad versus the woman speaker," it's very different than the language that was used with the Freedom Caucus and Paul Ryan.Very different language.And we have to ask, why is it gendered?Why is it racialized in that way?And that, you know, that is something that should be considered, as well, because sometimes you're talking about a personal slight, but most of the time you're talking about a policy fight, and those are two very different things.

The 2020 State of the Union Address

Let me take you to the February 2020 State of the Union.… The president knows … he's not going to be convicted by the Senate.He [awards the Presidential Medal of Freedom] to Limbaugh. …How does she view what the president was saying, the lies, the exaggerations … the idea that, in her House, he has basically decided to take it over for that one night?And she stands up at the end, and she rips up the speech.… What was your mother thinking?What was the statement that she was making, and why?

… So the president comes in, and the first thing I noticed and actually tweeted was that he—she extended her hand.The speaker of the House extended her hand to the president of the United States, and he did not shake her hand.And I had never, ever, ever seen that happen before, ever.And I've been watching State of the Unions since Reagan and had been in the room since Clinton, and I have never seen that not happen.So it was like, what do you mean, he's not going to shake her hand?

And then he basically—it was like he just came in and started manspreading all over the podium.You know, I'm going to bring in my loutish person.There are many, many people to whom he could have given the Medal of Freedom, many, many bipartisan people, Bob Dole-type characters, who could have received—I mean, Dole had already received it, but somebody like a Bob Dole.He could have easily done something like that.But he picked the most vicious person that he possibly could have to disgrace the House of Representatives and disgrace the medal with on that night.

Even people who support Donald Trump were like—didn't really find the words to wholeheartedly, full throatedly defend that particular choice.Other than Fox News, I don't even know that there was a single Republican out there defending the fact that he had given that honor.

So it was highly offensive.It was typical him.In fact, the morning of Jan. 6, it's what I thought he was going to do, a repeat performance: use his floor privileges to come to the House and bluster his way around.That was what he was saying anyway, right before the deadly mob came.

So he comes in.He doesn't shake her hand.He gives his speech.He gives the award to Limbaugh.And she's just—we're all watching this speech that he's given, and he's so undeserving.And he's lying, and he's lying, he's lying.There are a couple of truths that he told, but the rest of the speech was just a bunch of lies.And we knew that they were lies, and we knew that his word wasn't good.

So at the end—it reminded me of when a friend of mine, who's Italian, we were at his house.And his uncle had brought home a date who was very disrespectful, and my grandmother—we were clearing the dishes, and usually my grandmother would never clear the dishes, because we would do it for her—we'd tell her, "Grandma, you sit down."So we cleared the dishes.

And she picked up the plate of the guest, walked into the kitchen, broke the plates, put them in the trash, never said another word, walked out.And we served coffee and dessert.It was such an Italian grandma move, like that person doesn't deserve to be here; that person will never be here again; and we're not even saving the plate that they ate off of.

So when I saw my mother rip that, I thought, well, there's Nancy D'Alesandro. The Baltimore is coming out.We're just going to quietly rip that speech the way we break a plate.We're going to toss it, and we're going to move on.

And again, I think, it was the perfect way to handle him, because he did his whole song and dance, and she shredded the—she shredded the speech.It was a thing of beauty.

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