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Eugene Robinson
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Eugene Robinson
Columnist, The Washington Post
Eugene Robinson is a columnist and an associate editor at The Washington Post, where he writes on politics and culture.
The following interview was conducted by FRONTLINE’s Jim Gilmore on Oct. 28, 2021. It has been edited for clarity and length.
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January 6 and the Aftermath
So, Gene, let's start with Nancy Pelosi on the evening of Jan. 6 and then a couple days afterwards.She and [then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch] McConnell as well came back realizing that they needed to accomplish their tasks, their constitutional tasks that they had set out to do on that day and to show the rioters that they hadn't won ...How do you view how she dealt with the realities of what happened on Jan. 6 and what that said about her leadership, what that said about her views towards what had taken place?
Well, Speaker Pelosi was genuinely horrified, horrified and frightened for the future of our democracy.And that sounds grandiose, but it's true!If you remember that day, it was so shocking; it was something we'd never seen.And the aim was to stop a constitutional responsibility, to stop Congress from certifying the results of the election.
And I think the reaction you saw from Speaker Pelosi was genuine.And number one, it was determination.She was determined, as was Leader McConnell, that that evening they would indeed finish certifying the election results.They would do what the Constitution required them to do, and they would not be deterred by this violent mob.
And she was also, I think, she had a larger worry about President [Donald] Trump, about what he might still do between Jan. 6 and Jan. 20 when he left office.And I and others in glimpses saw the evolution of her attitudes toward President Trump.There was opposition; she was flabbergasted for a while; she was disgusted for a while.Remember when she tore up the State of the Union speech.
But this was something different.This was genuine fear that he might do something just—not just outrageous but something really dangerous to the United States between Jan. 6 and Jan. 20, Inauguration Day.
And so I think that's what you saw her express in that phone call with [Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair] Gen. [Mark] Milley and where she called the president crazy.In everything she did, I think it was genuine concern that we were in trouble.
Will history look at it as her overstepping her bounds, or will history look at her as somebody who was doing her constitutional duty?
Oh, I think the latter.I think history will look at that as a speaker of the House doing what she saw as her constitutional duty to protect the republic, to protect the Constitution.Those were crazy days when we thought the impossible was indeed possible because we had just seen it happen, and we didn't know what else would happen.And I think she was—she will be seen as having taken reasonable and responsible steps to try to prevent some sort of catastrophe.
... From everything we know about her life and her role in Congress and the history of her role in Congress and what she represents, who is this Nancy Pelosi at this point, at the point of Jan. 6 ... ?How does that in some way define that Nancy Pelosi who came from Baltimore, who was a little girl, who didn't get to Washington till her late 40s?How does that show a Nancy Pelosi coming to full fruition?
Well, I think you really have to start with who she is.I mean, you have to start with the fact that she's Nancy D'Alesandro.She's not some effete San Francisco liberal who grew up drinking, you know, Chablis at twee Pacific Heights parties.She grew up in the rough-and-tumble of Baltimore politics where her father was mayor, in a milieu where elbows were thrown and arms were twisted.
So she's a very down-to-earth politician.She came up through the House as an appropriator, where the rubber really meets the road, where—and she often reminds people of that, where actual dollars are appropriated that help actual people.
And so she's very much not, I think, a lot of people's image of what they think the San Francisco liberal is.And she's very tough.She's a very tough leader.She's very pragmatic in a lot of ways, the way she leads her caucus.She seeks consensus.She talks to everybody.She's kind of indefatigable.But she's very determined, and when she sees an objective, it's very hard to deter her from that objective.Even though it might take her a while to get there, she can be patient, and she'll get there.
And I think all of those things, all those characteristics, are what you saw on and after Jan. 6.You saw, you know, the real Nancy Pelosi.
... So let’s go back in time to start with the chronology that we’ll go through for our film.When she first enters the Democratic leadership, when she's the [whip] in 2001, it's the Bush administration.... She writes in the past about the fact that she realized that she was the first woman to be there; that after all these years of America, she was in the meetings in the White House where the decisions were being made on the direction that the government would take to lead America, and that was a pretty special moment for her.Talk to me a little bit about her, about that moment, why Nancy Pelosi, female Nancy Pelosi, rises to that that level, the importance of what that moment was for America. ...
Well, it was really important to her, and I think to the country, for a woman to rise to that level in the U.S. Congress.It is shocking in retrospect that it had never happened before.But she was the first, and she had to break all these barriers, eventually becoming the first woman to be speaker of the House.It's something she's very proud of.At the same time, like many pioneers, one of the things she's determined to do is make sure she's not the last, and so she's always been conscious of cultivating and advancing other women and people of color in the Democratic Caucus, not just to membership in the caucus, but to leadership positions in the caucus, because I think she understands that as a duty, as a duty of someone who goes first.
Pelosi’s Leadership Style
You talked a little bit about her history.Let's talk just a little bit more for a second.She, she now—in some of the eyes of some of the younger progressives that are in Congress now and to a lot of people—she embodies the establishment in a lot of ways, even though she's very proud of her progressive roots, and she's always been very, very progressive throughout her career ...So describe that woman and what it means for her to be the one in this leadership role in Congress.
Well, she's always been a Democrat.She's never been a Democrat who was unaware of the existence of Republicans or unaware of the existence of people who might think differently about issues than she does.And in fact, she has over the years had very warm relationships with people on the other side of the aisle, and I've heard over the years—talked to many Republicans who will denounce her in public and will say privately to you, "I really kind of like Nancy.She's a lot of fun."She can be very, very funny, and she knows how to talk to politicians and how to kind of push their buttons and make them relax and make them laugh.
She had a very friendly relationship with George W. Bush, actually, when he was in the White House.I mean, they got along fine.They disagreed on almost everything, but they got along personally fine.And that's what I think—that's, I think, that's how she sees a politician's role as, to disagree fiercely but not necessarily be disagreeable unless it's necessary, right?And so Donald Trump was a bridge too far for her, and she was not able to have those sorts of relationships with Trump or his team.But with prior Republicans in the White House and in Congress, she was able to talk and laugh and wheel and deal in a sort of way that was at times delightful to watch.
She deals with her caucus in kind of the same way.I once asked her, "How do you herd these, you know, this disparate and sometimes disputatious caucus?"And she explained how, you know, on a weekly or certainly regular basis she meets with everybody.She'll meet with the progressives, and she'll meet with the Congressional Black Caucus.She'll meet with the moderates, and she'll meet with the Hispanic Caucus, and she, you know, and she meets with everybody so that everyone is included; everyone's voice is heard.Everyone doesn't get their way all the time, but she works very hard at sort of including the entire Democratic Caucus and having no one feel left out.
By the same token, I once asked her if—on a specific bill, and I forget what it was, but whether she would give some members for whom it might be a tough vote a pass on this one because she was going to get it through anyhow, and she said, "I never give a pass."And so she, you know, she expected that once everybody understood, everybody's voice had been heard and a consensus and a decision had been made that everybody was going to stick with her.
She's renowned for being unbelievable in the way that she's been able to hold that caucus together.And I guess she also uses the harder edge sometimes.She has a harder edge towards them as well.She uses the carrot and the stick.
And the stick, yes.
But how phenomenal is that?And what of those tools become most important to her?
Well, you know, I think it's—what she does is incredibly difficult, and it takes a special kind of person and a special kind of politician.Number one, it takes an incredible amount of energy, because it does require hearing everybody out, no matter how long it takes.And I never heard of her sort of dismissing members of her caucus without hearing their point of view, trying to understand their point of view, trying to engage with it.So she's very careful to do that.
By the same token, she lets them know that she was chosen as speaker, she's the leader, and that when the time comes, she expects them to be there with her.You know, we've seen her, during the Biden administration, delay and delay on votes on the social spending package, really because it wasn't there yet.The cake wasn't baked yet.She didn't have that consensus.And she's renowned for not bringing things to the floor unless she's—unless she has the votes.And she knows she's an excellent vote counter, one of the best we've ever had.And she—so she wants to know at all times where everybody is, how many votes she has, and if she doesn't have them, then she's got more work to do to get them.
Pelosi and Bush
You talked about her relationships with Bush, which on a social level were very good.They seemed to like each other.But she was also fierce with him—
Oh, she absolutely was.
—when Iraq came around.She was very early in denouncing the policies on Iraq, the idea of the invasion and such, and she went after Bush.There's a famous article in the Chronicle out in San Francisco where she basically said the guy was over his head; his actions had killed soldiers because of the lies that had come out.So she also uses the partisan weapon for—when the GOP looks at this and how she came at the Bush administration, they saw it as a manipulation of events to win votes and to use it in coming elections and such.What's your sort of overview of that?
Well, she is a politician, and I think one of her modus operandi is basically that you can't do anything unless you win elections, right?You have to have the power in order to exercise the power.So she's certainly not above being a partisan Democrat and using whatever political advantage she is given in order to further the cause of the Democratic Party.So she will do that.
I think her opposition to the war in Iraq, to many of the policies of the Bush administration, including the torture and all the other policies we now know about—the spying, domestic spying and so forth—I think that was genuine.I think she was genuinely outraged about those things and genuinely opposed to them.But if that was politically good for her and the Democratic Party, then that's a bonus.
So when the 2006 midterms were coming up, and she realized that ... a big part of the progressive base was very mad at both Bush, but also mad at the Democrats because the Democratic leadership, a lot of them had gone along with a lot of the policies of the Bush people.And so when she's looking at that and she realizes that, in fact she comes down against very strongly, she understands that's a winning recipe for the elections?
I think she understands that that's a winning recipe, but I think that also reflects her evolution and the evolution of a lot of the Democratic leadership.You remember, there was a time when, if the president went to Congress and said, "This is a dire threat to the United States, to our national security, and we need to go to war," Congress has to take that seriously and has to—and in the sort of post-9/11 context, I think it was not just politics but also sort of genuine, I guess "deference" could be the right word, to the presidency and to the president that led a lot of the Democratic leadership to at least acquiesce in the war, if not really support the Iraq War.
But it was fairly clear, even to those who did not oppose it initially, fairly soon that this had been a bad idea and that we had had a plan to get in, but we had no plan to get out, and that in the process we were just doing things that were unacceptable for the United States of America.And as you recall, much of the country sort of reached that same conclusion.
So talk a little bit about her amazingly fast rise to the top of leadership in the Democratic Party.Certainly the Iraq War and being on the right side of it helped a lot in the politics of it.Certainly her ability, her amazing ability to raise money for Democratic candidates all the way through her career was very important, and a strength of personality, whatever it is.What did you see?Why did she rise so quickly so that by 2008, she's the speaker?
She's the speaker.I think it's a rare combination of qualities and abilities.She is, as you said, a prodigious fundraiser and has been for a long time.And that really helps you in politics if you want to rise in congressional leadership.
It's also the relationships that she cultivated, I mean, and the fact that she was able to have good relationships with all sort of ideological factions of the Democratic Caucus, those more progressive than she and those more moderate than she.She's clearly on the progressive side, certainly when she was coming up through the ranks, on the progressive side of the party.
And in part, it's, you know, I think force and strength of personality had something to do with it, too.I mean, she can be very magnetic and the sort of person you just sort of naturally perceive as a leader and that people are willing to follow.
The Financial Crisis
The financial crisis in 2008.It seems that every time she goes up another rung in the leadership, there's another crisis to deal with in some way or another.A lot of people say that was a big turning point for her in the way she viewed her role.It starts out with when [Secretary of the Treasury Henry] Paulson and [Chair of the Federal Reserve Ben] Bernanke sort of defined to both sides the threat to the country.She went against what her normal politics were, which was partisan and only working with Democratic agenda, and she agrees with the Republicans, with [House Minority Leader John] Boehner and other leadership, to hold hands and basically jump off the bridge at the same time and pass this thing to sort of safeguard things.What does that say about her?And I guess the thing that follows after this is that when it fails, she learns some lessons from that.
... The financial crisis probably was seminal in her development as a leader.I think you saw that when the secretary of the treasury and the head of the Fed and others came and said, "Look, this is a crisis.The economy is going to collapse.We must act."Even though they were Republicans, I think she understood the gravity of the crisis and saw it as a matter of duty, really, and responsibility that transcended partisan politics.
I think as, you know, when it turned out to be difficult to actually get all that money passed, I think she learned the importance of reading the room, of knowing where every vote is, knowing what every caucus thinks and laying the groundwork before you go for—go to a big vote.
And so since then, she's always laid the groundwork for every big vote.
The thing was that she pulled enough votes out of her caucus, in fact more than the number that she had promised.Boehner, on the other hand, had a very split party at that point.The Tea Party had come in, and the party was divisive within itself.Did she also learn that if you can and you have the votes, you do it within your own party and you pass bills that therefore contain more of your agenda rather than their agenda, and that negotiating sometimes with Republicans is not always the smartest way to go to get what you need?
I think she watched the evolution of the Republican Caucus and watched as, from her point of view, it became more difficult to deal with and less tethered to—again, from her point of view—less tethered to the reality of a given situation and more willing to grandstand for the Republican base.And she had very little patience for that.
She also had very little patience for Boehner.Not that she didn't get along with him—it's that she didn't think he was—he knew what he was doing.She didn't think he knew the basics of how to—how to get his caucus on board bills that had to be passed.Like raising the debt ceiling and stuff like that, he struggled mightily to try to get Republican votes for that even though he knew it had to happen.
And so she would talk about how early in her term as speaker, she had to pass funding for the war.Remember that the Bush administration had basically funded the war off the books, right, and there came a time when the troops had to be—you know, there had to be funding for the war.And by then, her caucus was almost unanimous in opposition to the war, and they didn't want to vote for that.
And so she found a way to split the funding measure into three pieces so that those who were opposed to the war could express their opposition, but in another chunk of it she could actually get enough votes to pass funding that had to be passed, because you couldn't not fund the troops that were over there.And she thought this was kind of being Speaker 101 and was shocked when others couldn't figure this out and frustrated that she'd go and say, "Look, just do it this way!I did it; you can do it this way."And they wouldn't do it, whether they were really able to or not.
Does this define a progressive with a practical side, which seems like a contradiction to many but somehow is ingrained in her?
No, she's very much a progressive with a practical, pragmatic side.She is—you know, she believes that Bismarck was right, that politics is the art of the possible.She wants to expand the range of the possible in the progressive direction.But ultimately you do what you have the votes to do, and you try to figure out how you can get those votes.And if you don't have the votes, you can't do it.
And I think she's very pragmatic.That's, you know, frustrating to some members of the Progressive Caucus, including especially some of the newer members.But that is very much the way she is.
Pelosi and Obama
So when [President Barack] Obama comes in, she was very happy, of course, with the fact they now had a unified government with majorities in the House and the Senate and a new Black president, which she was also very proud of.But they were very different in their ways of viewing how one uses power, on how one does politics.He was much more driven by a bipartisan direction to take, as he had defined in the election.Talk a little bit about how different they were and how that—but yet the ability for them to work together.
Right.Well, you know, there are a lot of differences between Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama.They're very different people; they're very different politicians.And I'm sure that at various times, each was a bit frustrating to the other.But they knew they were in a rare, almost sort of unique situation, right?They had, especially in the first years of the Obama administration, they had control of Congress; they had the White House.They had the ability to do transformational things, and so they both recognized that ability.Each would have done the other's job differently, I think.But ultimately, I think very quickly they realized that they had to work together if they were, for example, going to get the Affordable Care Act passed.And so—so they coexisted.But they're very different people.
And they both have a good sense of humor in a funny way, and I often wondered whether in private encounters they didn't sort of bond that way and get along on a human level, perhaps in a way that you wouldn't think given their differences as politicians.
The Affordable Care Act
... But on ACA, I know Obamacare, which was, for both of them, you know, the prime project for that very long period of time and that they're both most proud of.Talk a little bit about that frustration she evidently felt.There's a story about at some point her having a conversation with Rahm Emanuel and talking about the fact that Obama kept on wanting to woo the Republicans time after time.It wasn't working, but he kept on going back.And at some point she says to Rahm, "Doesn't he get it?Doesn't he understand how things work here?"What was the frustrations that she had about the way that Obama dealt with Republicans, what I think some people would say, his misunderstanding?
I think her frustration with Obama was that his instinct was basically to start with what he thought was a reasonable sort of Republican-friendly position that would attract some Republican support, which did not come and which was not going to come.And I think she understood that he wasn't going to woo Republicans that way and would have preferred that he start with a purer progressive vision for the Affordable Care Act, with the public option at the very least and then sort of retreat as necessary.That would have been more of her strategy, and she would have gone into it expecting that in the end we're not going to get many, if any, Republican votes, and that's the way it's going to be.They're not going to just—they're not going to play "Kumbaya" here.
And Obama had a certain appeal that went beyond party lines.That's certainly true, especially at the beginning when his approval ratings were sky-high.But that really never extended to Republicans in Congress.It never extended to the point where he was actually going to get Republicans to sign on to the sort of reasonable, almost centrist approach to health care that he proposed.
And to that point, the thing that some people have said that frustrated her to death was the fact that they had the votes.They had all the votes they needed.They could have designed anything they wanted, and, as you said, if they had started negotiating in a different fashion, they might have gotten more of what the progressives would have wanted.
They might have. They might have.I mean, I think if Obama were here, I think he would argue that you had to not just try to bring along Congress, but you had to try to bring along the country as well, and that by starting where he started, with less than a pure progressive vision, he was trying to get wider public support for what was really a big change, right?I mean, the Affordable Care Act was a very, very big deal.
Now, if that is what Obama believed, he was wrong, because, in fact, Republicans managed to bring the Republican base to a position of fervent opposition to the ACA, no matter what it looked like, no matter how much Democrats gave or tried to include Republicans.And so if that was his assessment, it was a wrong assessment.It is only now, years later, that yes, the ACA is pretty widely popular, and Republicans' attempts to get rid of it have all failed and will continue to fail, I think.You can't get rid of something like that once you've established it and people have come to depend on it. ...
And then on a snowy, cold night in Boston, Scott Brown wins Kennedy's seat.And people back down. ...She basically says, "No, we go big; we go quick; we go big.And Mr. President, your man Rahm is undercutting me in my House.And you can't do that.And I've got to tell you also that if you want to go big, I will be behind you, and I will make it happen.I will deliver the House, and we will do it.But if you go small, count me out."And it puts Obama in a bit of a box.I know Obama wanted it, and Obama eventually does sign up with what she wants to do, but talk about that moment and what that says about her.
Well, she knew she had the votes.She knew she had the votes for something big.And she's very determined.She was very determined.She thought it was the right thing to do and realized that if Democrats backed down at that point and went small, they might never get a chance to do it again, or it might be years before they really got a chance to do something meaningful on health insurance, on health care.And everybody knew what a huge, huge problem that was and is.It remains a big problem in this country, but less of a problem than it was before the Affordable Care Act.
And so she was, you know, she dug in, and she said, "No, we're going big, and I'm there with you.You be there with me."
Pelosi and Trump
... Let's talk about Trump.Her relations with Trump got off to an uneasy start when the first meeting of leadership in the White House he brings everybody down, and he starts being jovial and showing his lighter side with them.And she's a lowly minority leader at this point.And Trump does what he does.He starts talking about the fact that he had won the popular vote and that the crowds that were at the inauguration were larger than they were, and bashing others in the media probably, and everybody else.At some point she goes, "No, Mr. President, those are not the correct facts on the popular vote.That's not what happened."
So she stands up to him in a very sort of direct manner on that first meeting.How does that portend what's to come, and what does that say about the beginning of that relationship?
Well, I think she'd never seen anything like that, right?She'd never—you know, she had met a lot of presidents; she had never met a president who would just lie and who seemed to inhabit this sort of fantasy world that he either, you know, really believed in or didn't believe in but was trying to sell, or whatever.And I think she was just genuinely appalled by Trump.And from that first meeting, I mean, it started pretty low, and it went downhill from there.She just found him an impossible person to deal with.And he didn't bring people into his White House who were from her point of view easier to deal with or more reasonable to deal with.And I think it was very unsettling and odd for her to have so little of a relationship at all between the speaker of the House and the president of the United States. …
So by the time of the 2018 midterms, her strategy was don't attack Trump when you're out campaigning.He's already destroying himself by just his actions.Talk about health care.Talk about the programs that we're going to bring to people. ...
So that election, what does it say about their strategy, how successful they were and where Nancy Pelosi and the rest of the Democrats were in regards to Trump, in a very different position at this point because of winning the majority?
Right. And you can measure the strategy by its success.I mean, you know, Democrats did so well, won the majority, and Nancy Pelosi became speaker again.That certainly ratified the strategy that she did pursue, raising all that money, recruiting all those women candidates, energizing voters by talking about Democratic issues and the Democratic agenda.And she was right.When your opponent in politics is destroying himself, permit him.And that's what she did with Trump.
Division in the Democratic Party
Despite the role that she had and proving one more time that she was really good at her job and really good at bringing back the victory that she had promised for so many years, there was a moderate faction within her own caucus that disagreed and decided that her time was over and she shouldn't be speaker.So there was a small period of time where her leadership was up for grabs.Was that surprising, or did it show a division in the party that was not understood?
No, I thought that reflected political ambition more than anything else.Some people thought she could be taken down.She couldn't be taken down, it turned out.She had the continued support of the majority of her caucus.And I don't know that she ever thought her position was seriously in jeopardy during that time.I think she figured that she had the upper hand and she would—she wanted to continue as speaker and that she would.
... Coming into 2019, there's a couple things going on in the caucus which is causing a divide, and she needs to deal with it.One of them is the fact that the Squad is now coming after her to some extent.They have power but in a very different way.And it's very interesting because it's sort of the dynamics of what power is in the modern age.Is it the same as the power in Nancy's time?Nancy uses hard power.AOC has over 5 million Twitter fans, which Nancy discounts. ...
What's the difference between these dynamics and how interesting is it that they come head to head there?
Well, you know, I think that's an interesting relationship insofar as you can really observe the relationship.On the one hand, it has to at times be inconvenient for Speaker Pelosi to be sort of pushed from the left by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the rest of the Squad.On the other hand, it can also be useful, because Pelosi's views are basically progressive.It could be useful to have pressure from the left to demonstrate to the rest of the caucus that that's where the weight of opinion is in the Democratic Caucus.
Ocasio-Cortez has the 5 million Twitter followers or whatever and this huge public profile, but she's been very smart in the way she has not challenged Pelosi directly in a way that would force Pelosi to respond and that could damage both of them.So she pushes publicly, but when votes have been needed and when push has come to shove, she's been there.And the progressives, including the Squad, in the final analysis, despite rhetoric and despite Twitter, to this point have been really quite pragmatic in going along with the agenda, even though it hasn't gone as far as they would like. ...
At this time also, the other big thing is that the progressives are pushing for impeachment, and Nancy Pelosi is in the odd position of being the one that's pushing back on the idea of impeachment, and that's causing a bit of a division as well.She's coming from the point of view of again, this practicality side; she wants to get rid of him, yeah, of course, because she kind of can't stand the guy, but she thinks this is the wrong way.It's not going to do the job anyway, and what you're going to do is hurt your moderates, you’re gonna hurt them in the next elections.You're going to make it impossible to win over in some of the districts that Trump had won in.
Yeah, I think she—I think she believed for a long time that impeachment would be sort of a pointless exercise because you'd never get a conviction in the Senate, and so what would be the point of it?Politically she felt it wouldn't be helpful.It might be harmful.But what would be the point, until it reached the point with the Ukraine phone call and everything that she simply thought there was no choice; that this was an outrageous act for a president to commit; that it was a high crime and/or misdemeanor, and that there's no choice but to go to impeachment.And I think that once she got to that point, she, you know—then there was just no choice.
And what that decision did was, in some ways, it was Trump again doing something which helped mend her problems within the caucus that unified the caucus.
Yeah, right.Because the caucus had been somewhat at odds over that impeachment question, and there were many members who thought Trump did something every week that deserved impeachment, and a lot of others who said, "Yeah, maybe, you're probably right, but it's not going to go anywhere; it's not practical.Let's just beat him in the next election.Let's just—"
But the Ukraine thing just made it impossible to say, "Let's just let it pass."It couldn't be let pass, and that's something that the Democratic Caucus could agree on.
... So the State of the Union in February of 2020, which you talked a little bit about before.Talk a little bit about that event. And so he comes in and it's at the point where he is emboldened. ...Take us to that evening, and talk about the significance of what is happening there and the end result.
Well, I think it was clear to Pelosi that Trump came into that State of the Union with the intent of putting on a show at her expense.So yes, he came in and wouldn't shake her hand.And yes, he gave the Medal of Freedom then and there to Rush Limbaugh, who had just been vicious toward Pelosi over the years.And he was sort of despoiling her House as a way of getting at her.
And so I think she decided she would put on a show of her own.At the end, when he finished his State of the Union speech, she made a very big display of holding it up and ripping it in two, which I had never seen a speaker do; I don't think anybody has ever seen a speaker of the House do.But it was her way, I think, of saying, "This is my house, and I can put on a show, too."
... How should one look at Pelosi's adding to this divide in Washington, this partisan nature that is just so damaging to democracy?
... You could argue that there was a tit-for-tat escalation between the Democrats and Republicans in partisanship.You could argue that.I think you could certainly argue there was more of that on the Republican side than on the Democratic side, but you probably couldn't argue that there was none on the Democratic side, right, that there was no partisanship.
I think, you know, one thing that Nancy Pelosi has never been accused of is bringing a knife to a gunfight.And so if the game is everybody to their corners and we're going to be, you know, party is everything, and that's where we're going to be, then we're going to play that game, and we're going to win that game.
Maybe it looked the same from the Republican side.Maybe there were people on the Republican side who said, "Look, see, she's playing to win, so we have to play to win.So we can't cosign with Democrats," that sort of thing.
But look, we are where we are.I mean, Congress is a very different place from what it used to be.We shouldn't remember the past through glasses that are too rose-colored, right?The House has always been a pretty partisan place where most members sort of do what the leadership requires them to do and votes are more along party lines.The fact that the Senate has become as partisan as it has and as sharply divided along partisan lines is a bigger change, I would argue, than what's happened in the House.
Both together creates—
Both together creates gridlock.It creates—it makes it impossible, and gridlock on things like raising the debt ceiling, which has to be done, like basic technical improvements to legislation that's already been passed that could and should be made, and everybody knows could and should be made, yet can't be done because nobody can cooperate with anybody else.
Pelosi and Biden
... When you look back at all that Nancy Pelosi has learned over the years and what she's experienced, and all of these crises that she's gone through and survived, how does it all shape how she views what she will be doing with [President Joe] Biden? ...
Nancy Pelosi at the beginning of the Biden administration—and we're still at the beginning of the Biden administration; he's got three more years-plus to be in office—but I think she's defined by a number of forces that sometimes work against each other.Number one, I think she and President Biden do both understand that this is a time to go big, a time to do very big and important things, progressive things; that the opportunity might not come again for a long time and that there is a real need—it's not just an opportunity, but there is a real need for progressive legislation.
I think they see the opportunity to sort of turn the ocean liner, which has been sort of sailing in the direction of trickle-down since the Reagan years really, since [President Ronald] Reagan moved the political spectrum far to the right and made trickle-down economics, which was once exotic and weird and goofy, into orthodox dogma in Washington and basically the underlying assumption here for 40 years.And I think they see the opportunity to sort of move it a bit, move it back somewhat.And I think they both understand that this is a historic opportunity and one that the country is ready for.
On the other hand, she's got a much smaller majority, and the Senate is 50/50.And so both she and President Biden have absolutely no margin for error.And so they're trying to do big things with tiny majorities.Now, these are big things that have a lot of popular support, so they have that going for them.But they have tiny majorities, and they can't lose anybody.I mean, that's why getting the social spending package has been such a difficult proposition, because Pelosi can't afford to lose more than what, two or three votes in the House, and [Senate Majority Leader] Chuck Schumer can't afford to lose a single vote in the Senate.
And so, as President Biden said, everybody's a president; everybody gets to write the package according to their needs and wants.And so, you know, that's what is so difficult.And those—that opportunity but that difficulty, they work against each other, and it's—
Now, I think this is the kind of moment that Nancy Pelosi lives for, in a way.I mean, she loves her job, and she loves legislating, and she loves a difficult problem like this.I think she'd maybe love it more if it weren't quite so difficult, but she loves—but she relishes the opportunity to work through this and to come out on the other side with legislation, with something that really helps the American people.
So that's, you know, this is Nancy Pelosi's time.
What's at stake here, though?A lot of people keep talking about the existential threat that still exists, the need to be successful, to win back people so that the coming elections don't lead them back into the hinterland, basically.
Right.No, I mean, the—you know, look, the coming midterm election could certainly—it's very possible that Democrats could once again find themselves in the minority in the House.Now, that's not inevitable.Historically it's probable.Historically the party of the newly elected president loses seats in the House in the first midterm, and Pelosi doesn't have many seats to lose before she's no longer speaker.
On the other hand, who knows what history has to say to the sort of post-Trump, post-truth, post-reality nation and time that we're living through?Who knows what—whether history is a guide right now?I think it's a safe bet that Democrats are better off, have a better chance of keeping their majority if they're able to accomplish big and important things whose benefits people feel before they have to stand again before the voters.And they're worse off if they—if all they can do is tell voters about the stuff they wanted to do but weren't able to accomplish.
And then, you know, you kind of let the chips fall the way they do.It's a long time till the midterm.It's more than a year, so—
Pelosi’s Legacy
... What is the Democratic Party without Nancy Pelosi at this point?What's the dangers of that?
Well, like a lot of powerful leaders who, especially those who hold power for a long time and hold the kind of—it's not absolute power, but the kind of real power that a speaker of the House has, like a lot of people like that, she has never really wanted to have an heir apparent, right?So she doesn't really have an heir apparent.And so that's sort of the first issue.I mean, she is for the first time really being sort of coy when asked if this is her last term, and she's not directly answering the question and saying something like, "Of course not; of course I'm going to run again," or whatever.She's not saying that.She's saying, "I'll talk to my family, and we'll make a decision."
And, you know, as she completes her eighth decade on this earth, she can't go on forever.And so the big question is, who comes after Nancy Pelosi?And what sort of, first—My first question is, what sort of leadership skills does that person bring to the job?And then my secondary question is, which part of the House caucus, Democratic Caucus, does that person come from?Is it one of the progressives?Is it one of the more moderates?Is it somebody who tries to straddle both camps?
And that person will probably have some challenges, at least at the beginning, because everybody in the House now owes something to Nancy Pelosi.She's done something.She's raised money for them; she's made phone calls for them.She's done something for their district.She's done something to help them out, every single one.And there's nobody else in that position in the House.
And so the next Democratic speaker, if indeed the next Democratic leader is speaker—the next Democratic leader, actually, will still be in the process of beginning to form those strong relationships that Pelosi has had for years and years and years.And you can't do that overnight.
There are House members who would like to be the next speaker and who seem to be working toward that, but none of them is, in my view, anywhere—has anywhere near the network, the web that Pelosi has in the Democratic Caucus and the ability to count on everybody's vote when they need it.
... Have we ever seen anyone like Nancy Pelosi?And once she does leave, will there ever be a legislator like her, a leader in the Democratic Party like her?Or is she and what she represents something of a past generation?
Well, there will never be anyone like Nancy Pelosi because she's a first, right?She's the first woman to hold this job, and so there will never be another first like that.
Will there be another speaker as strong and powerful and effective as Nancy Pelosi?I think that's indeed possible.It'll probably be a while.I mean, when you look—look at past Democratic speakers, and I guess you go back to Tip O'Neill, who was a very effective and very powerful speaker, completely different from Nancy Pelosi in a lot of ways, but he was.And then you can go to, you know, there have been legendary speakers all the way back to Sam Rayburn.
So we'll have another legendary speaker.She is a legendary speaker, though.She will go down as one of the giants who has held that post.
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