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Podcast Summary: The Rest Is Politics - Episode 72: Nancy Pelosi
Overview In this episode of *The Rest Is Politics*, hosts Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart interview Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker Emerita and one of the most influential figures in American politics. They explore her rise to power, her experiences in Congress, and her perspectives on modern political challenges.
Key Topics Discussed
Nancy Pelosi's Political Journey
- Background: Born into a politically active family in Baltimore, Pelosi's father was a politician who served in various capacities, including mayor. This familial backdrop significantly influenced her understanding of public service.
- First Steps into Politics: Pelosi entered politics later in life, winning her first congressional election and eventually serving 19 terms. She became the Democratic leader in Congress for 20 years, showcasing exceptional political acumen and resilience.
Reflections on American Politics
- Change Over Time: Pelosi recounts attending JFK's inauguration and reflects on the stark differences in political culture since then, emphasizing increasing polarization and partisanship.
- Trump Era: She provides her insights on Donald Trump's presidency, describing his political tactics as exploitative and highlighting the challenges he posed to democracy.
Fundraising in U.S. Politics
- Secrets of Fundraising: Pelosi discusses the complexities of fundraising, illustrating how vital it is for candidates to secure financial backing to support their political campaigns effectively.
Perspectives on Current Issues
- International Relations: The conversation touches on a variety of global issues including Israel, Gaza, China, and Ukraine, where Pelosi expresses her views on the U.S. role in international diplomacy.
- Women's Representation: Noting her personal experiences, Pelosi reflects on the improvements in women's representation in Congress since she first entered, though she acknowledges ongoing misogyny in politics.
Bipartisanship and Governance
- Leadership Style: Pelosi contrasts her leadership approach with that of the Republicans, emphasizing collaboration and community engagement to mobilize support for legislative efforts.
- The Speaker's Role: She explains the significant powers of the Speaker of the House compared to the more ceremonial roles in other parliamentary systems.
Key Themes and Takeaways
- Resilience and Strategy: Pelosi's journey underscores the importance of resilience and strategic thinking in navigating complex political landscapes.
- Importance of Fundraising: Financial backing is crucial in American politics, often dictating the success of political figures.
- Bipartisanship as a Value: The episode highlights the diminishing spirit of bipartisanship in contemporary politics and the challenges it poses to governance.
- Legacy of Public Service: Pelosi's deep-rooted commitment to public service reflects the intersection of personal values and political responsibility.
Conclusion This episode of *The Rest Is Politics* with Nancy Pelosi provides a profound look into the intricacies of American politics, the personal experiences that shape leaders, and the ongoing challenges of governance in a polarized environment. Pelosi emerges as a figure of determination and strategic insight, offering a wealth of knowledge on what it takes to lead in tumultuous times.
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Listeners interested in topics of leadership, women's rights, and the dynamics of U.S. politics will find this episode particularly enlightening, as it combines personal anecdotes with broader political analysis.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Transcript
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1:38Welcome to The Rest of Politics, leading with me, Rory Stewart. And me, Alistair Campbell. And we are absolutely delighted to have with us a woman who I think is fair to say could be described as one of, if not the most powerful woman in the history of American politics. And if you're the most powerful woman in the history of broken politics, you're pretty powerful in the world. And that is Nancy Pelosi, born in 1940, mother of five, went into politics relatively late, actually, but has won 19 terms in Congress, has been leader of the Democrats in Congress for 20 years, many of them a speaker, still incredibly active, not least recently on the debate over Israel and Gaza, and over China and Taiwan, and over Russia and Ukraine.
2:23Wayne, this is a woman who has always been prepared to speak her mind and always worth listening to. I think just a footnote to remind our listeners that the leader of the House of Representatives in the US is a very, very powerful figure. And a speaker, not like the Speaker of the House of Commons, is somebody who isn't just presiding, but is a combination of what in the UK system would be some of the roles of the Prime Minister, some of the roles for Chief Whip, some of the roles for the Leader of the House, somebody who really makes things happen. Yeah, the American Speaker is not a referee.
2:56The American Speaker is a big, big player. And Nancy Pelosi has been a big player for many decades. So it's great to have her here.
3:05Speaker Emeritus, thank you very, very much for joining us. I wondered whether you could begin to bring to life for us a little bit of your childhood. Your father was a politician. I think, I guess, he entered the state legislature nearly 100 years ago, I guess, long before he got into Congress and became a mayor. So, very, very different world. Give us a sense of your father, what it was like growing up, what that kind of politics was like, and what you learned from it. Well, thank you. It's wonderful to be with you both. Thank you for the opportunity to share some thoughts. I was born into a family.
3:39I was the seventh child, the first daughter. so it was a big occasion. I didn't want anybody bossing me around. You must have been very spoiled. I didn't want to be spoiled. But anyway, into a family that was devoutly Catholic, proud of our Italian heritage, fiercely patriotic about America, and staunchly democratic. That was a long time ago, and it was at a time where we saw public service as an extension, and frankly of our religion to meet the needs of people, recognizing the separation of church and state, of course, but also understanding the gospel of Matthew. When I was hungry, you fed me.
4:23So they were almost daily churchgoers and the rest. That was ardent. And so was our enthusiasm for the Democrats. But it was a different time. It was, the Republicans were our friends and we had the difference of opinion and we'd fight it out in elections, but it wasn't any, it wasn't the way it is now. And speaking, looking at the personality of your father, what were his real strengths as a politician? And what was he less good at? Was he somebody who was, would have been a great mayor, but maybe less suited to be Speaker of the House? Or did you have a sense of what sort of, looking back at him, what sort of politician he was?
5:03Who was sort of a natural orator. He could turn the unfriendliest audience into a cheering, laughing. He wasn't great at reading a speech, but he was fabulous at convincing an audience. So he, when he was like 21 years old, ran for House of Delegates, that's the lower houses, then City Council, which is a bigger constituency, and then for Congress, and then for mayor. And he won like 23 elections in a row. That's four more than you. I don't know how many I've won. You've done 19. I don't even count. But I'll tell you this one story about my father, because I didn't learn about it until almost I became speaker and visited Israel as speaker.
5:50I'd been there before, of course, but as speaker. And the press reported that Nancy Pelosi comes by her love of Israel, her support for Israel, naturally. And it tells a story that when he was a boy, this gives you some of the ethnic politics. He was a boy. He was a Shabbat goy. And he would go light the flame. Because during Sabbath, Orthodox Jews couldn't do that work. So instead, somebody who wasn't Jewish would come in and light the fire and light the oven for them. And what he learned from that was Yiddish. So he could speak Yiddish. So he was an American-Italian who spoke Yiddish. Yeah. He didn't even speak Italian, but he spoke Yiddish.
6:31Because his mother was born in Baltimore. So when he started being on campaign general, I was speaking Yiddish, oh my gosh, he was in great demand. And when he ran for Congress, oh my gosh, they had a big thing at the time. Now we're getting close to the Second World War. They had a big thing, Berkson Group or something, which had an agenda of two things. that would be establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine and desperately to help the Jewish people in Europe. They didn't think the administration was doing enough in either of those regards. He runs for Congress, you can just imagine. They had praise, pageants, they say, I don't know, rallies and all about all this.
7:16And here he was, this Italian, going out there and doing that and running for Congress and winning. And he worshipped at the shrine of Franklin Roosevelt. You can just imagine. In little Italy in Baltimore where he was raised and I was, he worshipped the shrine of Franklin Roosevelt except on these two scores. And he, even when he was in Congress, went to the floor of the House and he said, Mr. Speaker, I rise as a representative of the men's Hebrew army, whatever that was. That's how he would introduce what he was talking about, about that particular subject. until one day he stood up there and he said, I want the record to show that two million people have been murdered because of what they believe.
8:02Two million, now this is earlier on. Two million people have been murdered because they're Jewish, and this information is well known to the administration and in the archives of the State Department. That was really a charge, because history tells us that we were avoiding that evidence about how they presented themselves on it. So that was really brave of him. So in any event, they write this all up when I go to, and it was interesting because I was in the 50s when the Diary of Anne Frank came out, and I read that as a teenager. I said to them, did you know this? Did you do anything about this?
8:40And I said, well, we tried. You attended, I think you must have been, it was 1961, so you must have been 21. You attended JFK's inauguration. Not yet 21, but yes, it was the beginning. And again, Rory was saying it would be 100 years since your dad was first elected. How come America has changed so much, lots for the better, but in politics it feels so much for the worse, since what must have been a time of incredible hope and aspiration? So just give us a sense of what Kennedy was like and how much American politics has changed since then. Well, he was at the beginning of January. My birthday would come much later.
9:18Right. Not that much. But in any event, I was at his inauguration. I'm probably the only member of Congress alive still who is at the, well, who is still serving, who is there. And the similarity that I will put there is John F. Kennedy was, as you mentioned, very inspirational. And in his speech, everybody in America knows that he said to citizens of America, ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country. But I, as a student in college, was studying global affairs, and I was impressed by the next sentence. The citizens of the world ask not what America can do for you, but what we can do working together for the freedom of mankind.
10:04And I said to Joe Biden, this was a very Kennedy-esque moment for you, because what he did in terms of Ukraine was to not say, America's putting up all this money, so we want to do it this way, was to not condescend, but to collaborate, to cooperate as partners, not as one of us being the leader. So I completely get why you can put Biden in the same category. But I guess what we see so much of your politics now is not that you were referring to when Republicans were your friends. Looking from here, it feels horribly polarized, possibly worse than it's ever been. Would that be a fair judgment? Well, in our lifetime, in the 30s, there was this ethno-nationalistic approach, isolationism and anti-Semitism.
10:56Anti-Semitism existed then in our country. So this is fairly recent, and there were legitimate concerns that people have about how their families and they welfare and globalization and innovation and immigration and that and then it comes along an ethno-nationalistic populist exploiting that uncertainty selling them a bill of goods and the only thing he did as president was to give a tax cut to the richest people in America. Could you give us a sense of President Trump's personality? It's quite difficult looking across the Atlantic to see what made him appealing to some of his voters, but also what his flaws were.
11:43I mean, can you give us a sense of his character as a politician? You can't tell. Even an ocean that unites us, not divides us, as John F. Kennedy said. But you've kind of been with him. You've seen him operate. Yeah, yeah. Grotesque. Grotesque. Grotesque. That is a euphemism. I mean, I could do worse, but this is a family show, right? Yeah, but we don't mind non-euphemistic language. No, but I don't engage in it. I'll allow him to take me down to that place. Here's the thing. As I said, there are people who had legitimate concerns about what's new, globalization, immigration. As I said, immigration isn't new, but as part of innovation and the rest.
12:26And he comes along and exploits that to his advantage for the wealthy. One bill under his leadership, 83 % of the tax of the advantage goes to the top 1%, adding$2 trillion to the national debt and then saying, well, we can't feed the children because it's going to add to the deficit when they added$2 trillion to give 83 % of benefits to the top 1%. So that's, it's an exploitation. Now there's among his, shall we say, so far supporters, but hopefully not all of them anymore. You have the, shall we say, the discriminators will never vote Democratic. You know, it's just who they are. Okay. Anti everything.
13:14And then now anti women, anti LGBTQ, they got a lot more antis going. And then you have these sincere people who are concerned. And now he's saying we're going to do this and we're going to do that. Of course, he had absolutely no plans to do any of it, including infrastructure. He was going to do infrastructure. But they still believe him. Some of those people still believe him. Well, we'll see how many. But yes, they fell for it, shall we say. And then we have a group who are comfortable, rich. billionaire, millionaire class, who just don't want to pay taxes. They know how repulsive he is, but they don't want to pay taxes.
13:57So they don't pay for the common defense, the security and safety in their neighborhoods. They don't pay for anything because they earned it and they want to keep it. And that's unfortunate. One of the things that's a mystery, I think, to us is the way in which Republican Congress people have continued to support Trump. because the sense at least across the Atlantic is if Republican senators and congressmen had been clear enough early enough in rejecting him that would have put him in a much weaker position. Can you give us a sense of why they were not prepared to come out more strongly against him?
14:32What they've told me is that and these are some of the leaders at the Republican Party we can't defeat these people in the primary you have to defeat them in the general and then we can come back to the normal debate of where we are on the spectrum in terms of the role of government, which is the legitimate discussion of a democracy. And we've always had a level of respect, even though disagreement, of patriotism and love of country and the rest, that doesn't really exist with him. Because he's this, as I say, ethno-nationalist populist taking down, and part Part of that is anti-elitist, what they call anti-elitist.
15:13They consider the press elitist, they consider higher education elitist. They don't consider themselves elitist. No, they don't. But there has to be a level of trust in all of this. And you cannot trust, I mean, don't listen to what he says, read his eyes, because he's going to do this, or he's going to do that, he's going to do that, and didn't do any of it. Self-preservation for him was the whole thing. But when you see the$2 trillion that they add to the deficit, when we did our agenda, we paid for everything. We paid for everything, not to add to the agenda. This great agenda of Joe Biden on a par with LBJ, FDR, at least for those two years.
15:55And then the Speaker said to me when we were trying to get him to do the aid package. This is Mike Johnson. Speaker Johnson. He said, well, I have to do the budget first. I have to get that finished first. And what was holding up some of that discussion was food for women, infants, and children, because it's really going to add to the national debt if we feed them. So you see, from a value standpoint, that's not typical of Republicans. But that's what their agenda is. Because, you know, a lot of those people, they're immigrants, or they might be black, or they might be women, and we can't be adding to the debt to feed them when we could be giving$2 trillion to the wealthiest people in America.
16:42Just on the point of women, when you were first elected, I think you were one of 23 Congresswomen, and at the time there were two women in the Senate. So it was a very, very, very male-dominated world. Is American politics still pretty misogynist or not? Well, we hope not, and we can't let it slip back that way. There were 23, 12 Democrats, 11 Republicans. I, having been the chair of the California Democratic Party, knew how to win elections. And so we joined together and made a decision that we were going to change that. You have to remember, we're talking about 23 out of 435. Yeah, absolutely, yeah.
17:21Are you kidding me, mister? So, I mean, that's what I said to them. Yeah, yeah. So, in any case, now we have 94 women. Yeah. And we're very excited about that. The Republicans are up to about 30-something, and that's only recent. But nonetheless, it's an improvement. But we have 94. We hope to have more. But at the same time, we increased our number of other people, LGBTQ, other people of color and faith, Muslim and the rest. So we're very proud. 70 % of our caucus is women, people of color, LGBTQ, 70 % of the Democratic caucus. That's, for a parliamentary party, a remarkable thing. So is Trump's misogyny, is that an aberration within American politics?
18:05Or is it? No. Oh, no. I mean, when I ran, and I'm talking about the 21st century. Yeah. When I ran, it was like, who said she could run? Right. This century. When I ran for Congress long ago, they said the same thing. Who said she could run? Light my fire, will you? You poor baby. It's over for you. So then who said she could run? And, you know, I said to them, don't vote for me because I'm a woman, but don't vote against me because I'm a woman. Before the 2016 election, you said pretty clearly and adamantly, Trump is not going to win. That's right. And he did. You're saying now ahead of this next election, Trump is not going to win.
18:48That's right. Okay. So where's my credibility? No, no, no. I know where your credibility is, but where's your confidence? I'll tell you what. When he won the first time, it was so hard to believe that the American people would vote for such a person. But they had, I'll give you this example. Paul Begala told me this story about his own family. You know, he was - Clinton guy. Well, and Hillary Clinton too. A leader in that campaign. In fact, maybe the leader in the campaign. And he told me that his wife's uncle was a farmer in Wisconsin. They had a farm in their family forever and ever. Or, oh, how could anybody vote for him?
19:27And this is terrible. And then they started to see a little bit of change. Well, you know, we know he's never going to make a pass at Aunt Tilly. But he said he's going to bring back the factory down the road. Of course, it was a false claim. But you see the economic thing weighing in, trumping, pun intended, the values. And so anyway, yeah, I said that. I couldn't even believe that somebody would say what he said about women. I mean, I just couldn't believe. I mean, in the past, I mean, if you wore a tan suit to a party, they said you couldn't be president. If you had a coffee cup in your hand, what is this?
20:13The president of the United States. And this guy should be nowhere near the White House under any circumstances whatsoever in the electrum president. But why I say it now is we were hopeful when he won. Well, he's president now and he will understand. Respect the office that he holds. Forget that. Forget that. Respect is a word that doesn't exist except for his own view of himself. But now people know. Now people know. You asked me about my childhood in Baltimore, Maryland. That's where the national anthem was written. And in that national anthem, one of my favorite lines that I quote all the time was, proof through the night that our flag was still there.
21:04Rockets, red glare, bombs, proof through the night that our flag was still there. That is what we have to do now, is to prove through the night of his horror that our flag is still there, as we pledge every day in our civic meetings with liberty and justice for all. So that is what is at stake. And we never thought when he was elected that democracy was at stake. We thought decency was at stake, but not democracy. But it is at stake now. Absolutely, in our country. Why is it that people like Liz Cheney and Mitt Romney are quite rare? Why is more of the Republican leadership not followed their lead and come out strongly against him?
21:43It's a big question. I wonder it every single day. and I talk to these people and they understand and agree. I don't know whether it's career or future run, somebody in the family, whatever it is. I don't know and I don't think it's bad intentions. I just think they just, they've never seen anything like this and as I said to you before, they say to me, we can't beat them in the primary. You have to beat them in the general but they know that they have to go and it's really a tragedy because there's so many good Republicans. The Republican Party and I always say, take back your party. You shouldn't be a cult to a thug.
22:23You should be the Republican Party, the grand old party. My colleagues don't like me saying that's done some great things for our country. Lincoln founded the party. He held our country together for one. There are some other examples, but that's not who the Republicans are. And when I, you know, I've been in Congress a long time. We have, we're like a kaleidoscope. if you're a republican one day we might be working together on an issue and the next day the two of you may be working on an issue or the next day like this it's a so you mentioned immigration earlier and i i remember ronald reagan's farewell speech as president was like a peon of praise to immigration i think if you read it there's not a single word that trump would utter and likewise you see people now these kind of pro-putin republicans and i think of the kind of mccarthy era, you know, where anybody who even sort of looked like they might be veering in that direction was kind of hounded out of public life.
23:20And yet these people are fated. So what's happened in the Americans' political psyche that that can exist? I'm glad you mentioned that Reagan speech. When the speaker was one and made his acceptance speech and came down, I congratulate him, said, anything I can do to be helpful. and since you mentioned Ronald Reagan in your speech, Mr. Speaker, I want to call it to your attention, Ronald Reagan. This is the last speech I will make as President of the United States. It was January 19th before the swearing-in of the new president and I want to communicate a message to a country I love and as Elister pointed out, he talks about the Statue of Liberty being the symbol of hope, speaking of hope and how we are preeminent in the world because we are constantly invigorated by newcomers to our country, unlike other countries.
24:11Back then, it wasn't the same diversity. Yeah, you said Japan, France, you can't become Japanese and French like you can become American here. And should we ever close the door, we will not be preeminent in the world again. And when I say that, I didn't say the whole speech to him. I said, you should read it. And he said, oh, yeah, I don't know that speech. I'll read it. But when I say it on the floor of the House during these things, I said, you're not applauding for Ronald Reagan, the Republican. Somebody doesn't even step on a pen on the floor. No noise whatsoever coming from their side of the aisle.
24:47So sad. And George Herbert Walker Bush followed that, and so did George W. Bush. He wanted to have immigration reform. And what about the McCarthyism point? These pro-Russian Republicans. If he gets elected, that's their. But if he gets elected again, there should be real fear in all of our hearts about how he would proceed in a McCarthyite way. And these people on the other side, it's a Putin clique. Okay, Speaker Emerita, Alistair, let's take a break.
25:22Speaker, can I bring you back to something which goes back to the first time I think that you met Alistair, or maybe the second time you met Alistair, which is around the Iraq war. And my memory is that you were quite clear and straightforward from your position in the Intelligence Committee in saying that you did not see evidence of the sort that Tony Blair and George W. Bush were taking forward. And you felt quite strongly about that. Can you, thinking back to that, did you feel disappointment with Tony Blair? Were you angry with the direction in which they were going then? I can answer that.
25:59I thought, I knew where Bush was coming from, I think. I didn't think Tony Blair would. But in any event, just to get to it, I'm writing a book now. It's coming out in August. I'm finished writing it. It's coming out in August. And then the chapter on a rock says, the intelligence does not support the threat that they were advocating. It didn't. And I go through all the statements that were made and all the rest of that. And in the capacity that I was, I was to receive all of the intelligence that they had. Then in the gang of, well, I was - One of the small group of people. The small group of people.
26:37We got the top intelligence. It wasn't there. It was not there. And there were some sad moments like Powell going before the, oh my gosh. The United Nations. The UN. That broke my heart. Well, he was so great in so many ways, but nonetheless that. So, but I was gentle compared to the Senate. I was the top Democrat in the House on intelligence. The top Democrat in the Senate, we were in the minority. They were in the majority, the Democrats. So he was the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, Bob Graham. He wrote a book on this, which you should reference, called Intelligence Matters. He proposes in there that Bush should have been impeached.
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27:23because of leaving Afghanistan too soon, which I complained about too, that there were far more terrorist threats to us that needed to be addressed and misrepresenting the basis for going into Iraq. And just on that, because I was very closely involved in that, as you know, when you say misrepresentation, do you think that... That's a euphemism for light. Exactly. So Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Tony Blair, as far as you're concerned, they lied. Well, Tony Blair, I think you all had an investigation of this, right? And we, well, we were cleared of lying. But not of ignorance. I don't know if it was ignorance.
28:08I think we were cleared of lying. But I think that the, certainly the main accusations made of wrongdoing were not substantiated. But I'm just interested in what you, you're a Democrat. Right. probably quite attracted to a lot of the politics of Tony Blair. Oh, yes. And I know you were there because I can remember you being there. What did you feel when you saw a Labour government being so close to a Republican government doing something that you felt to be wrong? Well, I don't have any problem with bipartisanship. I mean, coming together, especially on security issues. That should even be what is accepted.
28:44What concerned me was that he wouldn't help us at all on China at all. He stood in the way. He said, they shouldn't be doing anything in a unilateral way. We should be all doing it multilaterally. And when we presented that opportunity, he said no. So, Speaker, just to remind listeners, this is you were asking for Tony Blair's help on calling out China, particularly on human rights abuses, oppression of minorities. And you felt Tony Blair was not supporting you on that. Not at all. And was that again because he didn't want to upset George Bush? I had no idea. No, George Bush wasn't particularly bad on that.
29:18we just this was even pre-George Bush this is like still Clinton was terrible on it he was a great president but he was terrible on human rights in China it wasn't human rights it was security sale of delivery systems and other technology to rogue states it was trade unfairness lack of market access piracy of our intellectual property and the rest and prison labor which is a human rights issue but it's also unfairness to our workers to compete with the low cost of that. But the religious freedom, we worked with the Catholics there, with the Buddhists and all that. And he maintained that he was concerned about religious freedom in Iraq.
30:03Remember that? You remember that? I do. But he didn't care about religious freedom in China. And speaking, during the course of your career in Congress, you came in at a time when America was really moving into this immense superpower position. you presided through the 90s and early 2000s where America was really predominant and then since 2014 it seems as though the world has become a much more complicated and and violent place than other powers have risen what's your sense on how the world is changing and what the next 10-15 years will hold well we have a competition now between autocracy and democracy that is real that is real and we have Russian interference in our elections maybe Chinese as well, maybe other countries as well.
30:49And we have to be aware of that because a democracy is about a free and fair election, not about Russian intervention. We have an assault in our country on voting, you know, suppression of the vote and all that, which affects the outcome of the election. Big dark money suffocating the airways with their fake message and the rest. And then to, again, respect for an independent judiciary, which you see sadly happening in his court cases and stuff in terms of even respecting George's safety. So that's why we have to win this election. When he came into office in 2016, what's his name? He shall remain nameless.
31:34What? He threatened that he would not honor the mutual defense. NATO. He threatened, even now he's saying that Russia should just go into these NATO countries that have not done their 2%. What is that? But you see a camaraderie with him and Orban and Putin and some others that is dangerous. I mean, when my members come out of the country, our country, Tornokan. It's about three things. First and foremost, it's about security. Security, security, security. And that's the basis of our conversation, whatever we may think about other issues. Second is economics, which is related to security. If you're the Chinese and you're going in and buying geopolitical support in countries by selling them a bill of goods that they're going to have to pay for majorly later, but they don't know it yet.
32:33and governance. How is a country governed? Respect for their people, are there democratic freedoms? We'll expect them all to be democracies because that's not their system. But what is the integrity of how they treat people, but also lack of corruption if they're going to attract investment and economics so they're not unconnected. Don't overstate the, it was a misrepresentation. They did not, the American people did not hear the truth from these people. Your question is, did they know? Well, you have to ask them. But we, on the basis of the intelligence, there was no basis to justify the case they were making to the American people.
33:16Okay, well, Rory and I have talked about that for hours on the podcast. I'm on your side. Read my book. Read my book because you will see quotations from generals, even Rumsfeld saying, where is the basis for this intelligence? All I'm saying is I don't want to relitigate the whole thing when we've got limited time with you. I want to ask you about your time as Speaker. And I want you to explain to British people, because the Speaker in British politics is like a referee. Right. Whereas the Speaker in Congress is like a really big player. Yeah. So just tell us what the Speaker does, why it is such an important position, and how you did it may be different to some of the other Speakers that we may have known.
33:58Well, the speakers, I go to the NATO speakers meeting, I did when I was speaker. And it was, we were different. Even among us, we were different. They were presiders. They had, in some cases, the power of recognition, which is important in terms of the debate. Some of them have to give up their party affiliation in order to serve. And so there are different gradations of it among the speakers. but they're all parliamentary governments, the others. And I was the only one that was in a presidential. So only eight years since Richard Nixon, only eight years since Richard Nixon has the party in the White House and the party controlling both houses of Congress been the same, Democratic or Republican.
34:47Does that make for functional government? Yeah, well, you have to cooperate. You have to be bipartisan. And so bipartisanship has always been until now when they don't even believe in liberty and justice for all. So what do you have in common with them? So as Speaker, you're in a different place. It's in the Constitution, the only leadership position in it, President, Vice President, Speaker of the House, second in line to succession, and has a role defined in the Constitution. so you are the leader of the house and all the administrative responsibilities that go with that and that's a kind of a non-partisan aspect of your job but you're the leader of your party and the party agenda is what it is now you try to be respectful in a bipartisan way to show that and show accountability but you can be political oh
35:50what's this about yeah yeah yeah no it's it's a it's the top position in the congress so i listened to your interview uh 2015 i think it was with david axelrod and david said he was obviously part of barack obama's team he said that the the affordable care act could not have happened without what you did. So what did you do? I counted the votes. No, what we did was different, and this was different. We said, here we had the opportunity of a century. Started with Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman tried, LBJ. Now we had the opportunity of a century, and certainly of a generation, to add a fourth pillar to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and now the Affordable Care Act.
36:44And our, shall we say, presentation centered around the Congress will write the bill, not the White House. And that was different. You saw in the Clinton years as well-meaning and values-based, but this was going to be written by us. So what we did was we wrote a bill that even some in the White House said was as close to perfect a bill that there could be. Then we have to deal with the Senate. And that's, shall we say, a curious endeavor of our own party. Fortunately, we had Harry Reid there who was spectacular. He made so many things happen that wouldn't have happened left to their own devices over there.
37:27So we wrote the bill with consensus from our members. everything within the committees and all that so that people knew and could weigh in. There are regional differences, generational differences, all the rise. Who's holding the pen at that point? What do you mean? Who's holding the pen over the bill? In the House? Yeah. Me. I mean, what do you think? Yeah, I'm just wondering whether you don't delegate that or whether… No, we delegate it to the three chairmen. There were three chairmen, Ways and Means, that was Charlie Rangel, first and foremost, George Miller, Education and Labour, and Henry Waxman.
38:08They ruled. They each had the pen for their committee. And then we told them they had to blend the bill so that it had that consent. And the White House are just kind of slightly to one side. No, no, not slightly. They were involved. They're central. They're involved. Yes. No, they were very involved. Give us a sense of how these conversations work. So let's say I come in to see you. I used to be a member of parliament and I say, Madam Speaker, you know, lovely bill, but I'm afraid I'm not with you on this one. I'm not going to be able to vote on this. What would be your response? No, we have a gentle touch on our side.
38:45But the Republican side, though, say you probably don't like your committee assignment and you probably don't want to be chairman of the committee. That's not how we do things. Well, it depends. I mean, we want to know why. Do you not know what the bill does? Do you not? You know, some say, well, it's not popular in my district. And so I want to do it this way. I said, well, that's, I hope you know your district better than I do. I know your district, but I hope you know it better. But I know the bill better than you do, and let's discuss it. So you'll go through the numbers on my district. You'll say, well, look, I know a little bit about your district.
39:17Let's have a conversation about the district. Let's have a conversation about the bill. You'll try to draw me into a conversation about the details of it. Nicely. It's inside maneuvering and outside mobilization. Let me just go back to just the White House for a second. The president was fabulous. He was with us all the way. He had his ideas about what he wanted it to be. And we had shared values in all of this. So it wasn't as if we were going down a different path. And same thing with Harry Reid in the Senate. But as I say in my book, they just got there. It's out in August, by the way. They just got there, right?
40:002007. Yeah. We have been there. A long time. And these members, not just me, but these members know the policy. They know the possibilities and the rest. So then for when somebody comes in, it depends on what stage we're at in it. Was it in the committee stage? Well, maybe they have a good idea that could be incorporated, not to get their vote, but to improve the possibilities for our constituents. And then some you're never going to get. See, because what happened to us when we won in 06, 6 for 06, a new direction for America, we promised that and we did them all except one that the Senate didn't pass, which was to have the secretary negotiate for lower prescription drug prices.
40:44Always been a challenge. But anyway, we succeeded with that. But in 08, with the President Obama on the ticket, we won all these seats, Mississippi, Alabama, this or that. those people are never going to vote with us. And I said that night of the election, I don't know if I can afford this. I can't reelect all these people because it's too many people. And they're spending our money criticizing me. So, you know, I don't care about that as long as they win. But if they're changing parties, you know, that's a different story. It's so wonderful hearing you talk about how you did it. And you are going to go down in history as one of the greatest speakers ever.
41:27Your name is absolutely up there ahead of Rabin and O 'Neill as one of the great speakers of the House. I'd love as my last question for you to reflect on what it is that made you a great speaker and whether you would have been as good if you'd been a mayor or a president. Now, let's just sort of root through looking back on your life on what sort of politician you were and where you felt your strengths were, maybe a little reflection on if you had any weaknesses. Well, let me just say in terms of the first aspect of it, I never intended to run for Congress. I'm shy. I'm a shy person. I never intended to run for Congress.
42:07No, I was. when my husband and I were married and we had five children we never talked about my running I wasn't I wasn't even interested in doing that I love my life and this or that but I had been raised in the tradition of public service so I and I was a staunch democrat so I volunteered in that and then became the chair of the party in California which I thought was like the ultimate glorious I am the chair of the biggest democratic party in America with all the resources that go with it in terms of grassroots and all that. And so then people asked me to run for Congress. It was like, well, who said she could run?
42:47It was that kind of a thing. And I won't go into it. Read my book, you'll see. Because you're almost as good at plugging books as I am. I've got two books coming out in all of this, by the way. Well, we'll hear about those in a minute. I'll trade you. But I don't want to go into the detail, but it's public information. So then when I was in Congress, I had the glorious, intelligence, appropriations. I loved my work. I was a top Democrat on what we call foreign ops, whether it was climate or human rights, but mostly our assistance to other countries, which I called cooperation to other countries.
43:25And then they said, you have to run for leadership. You have to run for leadership. I said, I don't have any interest in that. I've never come here to do that. I love my work and policy and this or that. And I don't even know how long I'm staying. You have to run. But then we lost 94, 96, 98. And when 2000 came around, I said, you know, I'm really tired of losing.
43:52I mean, that's my motivation. You know, we'll get to my motivation and why it would be a good speaker. I said to them, I have raised you money ever since I came here. I've had no say in how you spend any of it. And we're still, we've lost these four elections, three. I'm going to take over California. I know the grassroots like the back of my hand. I know every blade of grass of the grassroots. And I know the districts and I know the people. And I'm going to do California. And I guarantee you four seats. They needed six or seven seats to win. It changed over the course of the time because one person changed parties.
44:31So it became seven. I said, when we needed six, I'm going to give you four seats. You just win two elsewhere. We got the majority. So we did it that night. That night, we had 26 Democrats and 26 Republicans. Later into the night, we had 31 Democrats and 21 Republicans. Five will get you 10 every time, right? And so we went back. I thought we had won. You know, my staff was pulling my seat. I was going to see the press, and they said, we lost in the rest of the country. Only one other seat in Arkansas did we win. We lost in the rest of the country. So I demonstrated I know how to do this. And then I ran for whip and then leader and then speaker.
45:14Now, speaker is what I tell the members and I tell the candidates, know your why, that you are going to be such a target, and you have to know why you're doing this in a very serious way. So know your why. and my why was one in five children in America who lived in poverty, went to sleep hungry at night. I went from housewife, house member, house speaker on that strength. So that was always in my decisions, in my respect for others, the whole thing. Were they there for the children? I also had a big, I mean, when I came to Congress, HIV AIDS was murderous. murderous in my district. I was going to two funerals a day.
46:00So that was, again, we had to get something done. This wasn't a discussion. This was an urgency, right? So when I went there, I really was, I don't know why I thought I could do these things, but I said I have to be on the committee to do the money for this or that. I didn't expect the discrimination that we would get on HIV AIDS, but we did get the money and the policy and the rest. And then I challenged George Bush on China. He was a nobody, a total nobody in Congress. They don't even want to know your name until if you've won twice in a row. And he's a lovely, beautiful man. I loved him. And the whole family, Barbara and George Bush and Laura as well.
46:45Is this Bush Jr. or senior? Senior. So now I'm there like one and a half terms. Right. Teotihuacan Square, and I'm challenging him. Oh, it was right back then, right back then. Yeah, right then. So, but anyway, I never thought that I couldn't do whatever I set out to do. So in any event, one thing and another, I never thought I'd be Speaker. I thought Dick Gebhardt would be Speaker, but then he decided to run for President. So let me just end with this story for you. So when we were doing the bill, we're on a path. We have to solve problems. It's very, very complicated. But meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting.
47:21And we're all good. We're going to get this done despite some of the, shall we say, uncertainties in the United States Senate. And Ted Kennedy dies and Brown becomes the senator. So the press said to me, you're dead. You ain't got nothing. And I said, no, we're not going to give up an opportunity of a generation to give health care to American people. We're going to get it done. Well, he said, how are you going to do it? I said, well, we're not going to let anything stand in our way. If there's a fence, if there's something standing in our way, we'll push open the gate. If that doesn't work, we'll climb the fence.
47:57If that doesn't work, we'll pole vault in. If that doesn't work, we'll parachute in. But we're not letting anything stand in our way. And this is important to your question. So then after we won, they said, well, which one did you do? I said, well, push open the gate. It was not just the members to make the courage to make the vote. It was the outside mobilization. Thank God for the nuns because the bishops were a disaster. Says she has a devout practicing Catholic every day, you know, push open that gate. The nuns were there with us. The outside mobilization, people who were affected, all the disease groups, you know, all of that.
48:35It was just a remarkable outside mobilization that not only helped us pass it, but to save it when they came in to defeat it. My final one is just the very final end of your answer. What do you think, you've given us your great strengths as a speaker, what do you think might have made you less strong as a president or a mayor? Are there other elements that make you stronger at some bits of politics and less strong at other bits if you look back at your life? I mean, I would have liked to have had more success with human rights. But there were obstacles to that. But still, we're still fighting.
49:09I met with Nate Dunlaw yesterday about what's happening in Hong Kong. Let me say it in a positive way about my successors. They are fabulous. They're not my successors. They're successors to everybody who ever served in the Congress. And they're fabulous. And they bring our leader. He's so eloquent. His presentation is so fabulous. and that was not anything that was my forte, shall we say. So I think that that was good. But in some ways, it was helpful to me with the members because they knew that I wasn't there for anything. Other people are running for this, running for Senate, running for governor, running for cabinet, whatever it is, president, whatever.
49:52And I was just, I love the House. I love the House. And my role was there and I didn't want them to vote for something so that I could be the secretary of whatever. I wanted to vote for something because it was the right thing for our country. And so they knew I had no other agenda, and I let them all shine. So it wasn't necessarily a weakness, but it's something that I point out for the next leadership. It's going to be a beautiful thing. Thank you. Honestly, I could have talked to you all day. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your wisdom. And good luck with the book. Oh, forget that. Good luck with the election.
50:32Yeah. And we will win. Yeah. Everybody has to do their part. Yeah. No wasted time. No underutilized resources. No regrets the day after the election. Thank you very much. Thank you so much.
50:46Gosh. Whoa. That was pretty amazing. I thought she's wonderful. And one of the things maybe that didn't completely come across in interviews is just how charming she is when she enters a room. and you could see the skills. You know, even at the end there, she was saying to me, you know, this guy doing defending Tony Blair, and you said, wait a sec, that's Rory that raised that. And she said, was he in the same room as us? But you could see that actually in a way that sometimes in public interviews, she can come across as quite stiff, but there's a real, a sort of twinkle and a charm and a skill, which suddenly I could understand what made her probably the greatest speaker of all time.
51:26So it's interesting, before we sat down with her, you and I went to the office over the road and had a little chat about how to do it. And I sensed that you were really worried that she'd be very same lines that she always used in interviews, a bit sort of prickly and so forth. She was just none of that. Even though some of the stuff is stuff she's said thousands of times, she's got this amazing skill to say things as though she's saying it for the first time. She's got incredible eye contact. And I mean, I kept looking and thinking, is this woman really 84? Because she's got so much energy. Well, her energy is kind of incredibly famous.
52:02I mean, you're famous for energy. But she famously gets up at half past five every morning. People talk about her calling them on Christmas Day and her saying, wait a second, I'm putting the dinner in the oven. And they say, she says, the Uyghurs in China are not celebrating Christmas Day. No, and even at the end there, when her staff were trying to get her out to get to the plane, she couldn't even as she was getting out the chair she was doing all that sort of you know no time wasted no hurdle and stuff we've got to win we've got to win we've got to win yeah which and and i i also thought that you do get a sense i think on what her recipe was for making her this amazing speaker because she sort of hinted at it she said um of course uh you know you could bully people about who gets to be committee chair but that's more what the republicans do I would ask you know do you really know your district as well as you think and what are the numbers and then she said and it's the external mobilization which I'd love her to develop on more that she obviously was able to really say we can get the nuns in we can get a whole external pressure to get that congressperson across she did um I think you were trying hard to get to say I was made to be speaker not to be president yeah um but I think she sort of accepted she's not maybe the greatest she talked a lot about other politicians being great presenters yeah great public speakers she's not a great orator i think she'd accept that but she has as you say i i mean she's raised more money for the democrats than anybody on earth apart from the clintons over a billion dollars i mean we we wanted to talk about money in american politics we didn't there's so much we didn't get into yeah we wanted to but and that's that's part of the trick isn't it too because one of the things the great speakers can do is that they can direct money towards your campaign.
53:41Oh, yeah. So if you are, because there are these huge now political action committees, very, very fluid money, and the speakers, both Republican and Democrat, can effectively, if you vote in line with the party, put money behind you. And ultimately, she probably would say she never does this, but certainly on the Republican side, if they don't vote with you, put money behind your opponent in the primary against you. I mean, the thing about being 84 as well. So she's been in Ireland. She had a pretty busy schedule there. She's been in the UK. She was at an Oxford Union debate last night where she was sort of, you know, harangued by protesters over Gaza.
54:18And yet she's clearly somebody who's just going to keep going and keep going. I just hope to God I've got that energy at 84. I'm sure you will. Do you think I will? You're very, very similar people. Do you think so? What did you think, seeing her as a politician, what did you think was her quality? Did she remind you of any British politicians? Did she seem completely unique? what sort of person did she strike you as being? God, that's a very good question. So what is it now? 2024. So was it 2002 when Tony Blair, around then, 2002, that Tony Blair did that speech in Congress, which she hated. I remember having a very brief chat afterwards and she was, you know, and by the way, thanks for that.
54:56Thanks for dropping that in. Thanks for the fact that we, she and I had a conversation about Tony Blair's speech and how disappointed she was. You raise it and then she criticizes me for defending Tony Blair, for God's sake. So anyway, but I remember then that at that point, because she was so angry, she wasn't showing the anger, but I could feel the anger. Everything I've ever seen of her, I see a woman who says what she thinks. Clearly very, very, very skilled politically. I think she's sort of, she's got a bit of Thatcher with charm. Now I know Thatcher had charm, but she had, she's got a directness.
55:29We were saying earlier, when you were saying, are there any apologies in Nike? And we were talking about Theresa May. She's not like Theresa May. Very, very different. She's got the why, hasn't she? She has got the why. You do get the sense of that why. I can see why she's a great fundraiser. And she's quite polite. I mean, even with Trump, she wasn't as extreme as she could have been. She hates him, though. She absolutely hates him. But her daughter says that around the dinner table, it was always very... You know, her brother, when he was mayor of Baltimore, and he was asked, you know, what's the job like?
55:56He said, they feed you shit in the morning, they feed you shit at lunchtime, they feed you shit in the... And she, when asked to confidence, absolutely refuses. No profanities. But you absolutely, I think, read the code. You get where her values are. You get what she thinks. Yeah, yeah. Very impressive woman. Good. See you soon. See you very soon. Thank you.
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