Why the right has “a bankruptcy of ideas” and how elections are “about the future.”
In an exclusive interview for her podcast Next Question, Katie sat down with Nancy Pelosi, the iconic former Speaker of the House, to delve into her groundbreaking career and personal history — and to discuss her new book The Art of Power. In their conversation, Pelosi, known for her trailblazing role in American politics, reflects on her early days in Congress when female representation was minimal, how she navigated the challenges of asserting her power in a very male environment, and her vision for advancing Democratic priorities.
Pelosi also discusses the aftermath of the violent attack on her husband, Paul Pelosi, and the January 6 insurrection. Of course, they talked about the current political landscape, including Pelosi’s views on the Republican party’s transformation, her reflections on President Biden’s leadership versus the term of former President Trump, and what she sees for Democratic Presidential nominee Kamala Harris.
Read the highlights of their conversation and watch an edited video below, and listen to the full episode for even more of Pelosi’s insights.
Katie Couric: You write that your friend, Louisiana Congresswoman Lindy Boggs, told you early on in your political career, “Know thy power and use it.” How hard was it as a woman, because you’re such a pioneer, to actually do that? Especially as a woman who wasn’t being taken as seriously as you should have been?
Nancy Pelosi: Well, that’s other people’s problem. You don’t take me seriously, that’s to your peril because we are here to get a job done. When I first went to Congress, there were 23 women out of 435 members. Isn’t that appalling? And so I immediately knew that we had to make a change, and made a decision to elect more women — more democratic women, of course — to Congress. We now have 94. We went from 12 to 94, but we still want more. The Republicans have gone from 11 to 30-something, which is good, but they still need more as well. When there were 23, [women were] a novelty. Men didn’t feel so threatened by that. Then as our numbers grew and grew, they wondered, What’s going on here? And if we ever wore the same color one day in solidarity for whatever was going on, they’d be like, What are they up to now? Or if we ever gathered in the well to share a thought, they wondered, What are they up to now? And then, when I ran for leadership, it was, “Who said she could run?”
You write that many men tried to diminish you and your skills, and insist on a pecking order and timeline — like, “Wait, your turn, little lady.” But you had a great response to them, didn’t you?
They said, “Some of our people have been waiting a long time for a position to open up.” And I said, “Well, wait a minute — we’ve been waiting over 200 years. So, don’t talk to us about a timeline.” But 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.” I wasn’t putting myself out saying “we need a woman in leadership.” I wanted to win — I wanted to prevail for the Democrats. I take great pride in being a Democrat, and we were losing each election: ’94, ’96, ’98. So, in 2000, I asserted myself politically, and in California that night, we went from 26 Democrats and 26 Republicans to 31 Democrats and 21 Republicans. And then they started to take notice. But I didn’t get elected Speaker because of anything other than the fact that I won the majority. And that’s how you get a speaker. You win the majority.
I asked a friend of mine what he’d like to ask you, and he said, “Please ask her why she never ran for president.” And so Ralph Esposito, my friend, this question is for you: Why haven’t you, or why didn’t you?
I’m a legislator. Legislating and the use of power to do so is about respect, listening, learning from members, and building consensus. It’s hard because you’re talking about policy and you have to have a vision as to what your goal is. You have to have knowledge of the issues and judgment about how to prioritize. You have to have strategy as to how you’re going to bring people together. And that’s a big undertaking. So you don’t have time to think about any other office but the one you’re in.
In the book, you talk extensively about the brutal attack on your husband, Paul, for the first time. It’s been almost two years. I can only imagine how horrifying that was.
It was horrifying and continues to be. We’re hoping by the time it’s been two years — at the end of October — that Pop will be fully recovered. He’s on his way; he’s about 80 percent. It was beyond shocking that someone would come into our home and seek me out, not find me, but assault my husband in that way. And really, it was a centimeter, as the doctor said on trial, from being a fatal attack on his brain. But to enlarge the issue, it’s not just about us. It’s about the exposure that anyone in the political arena has if you speak out. What that man was saying when he was going through our house is very similar to what was said on January 6, when people were going through the House of Representatives in the United States Senate.
So how is Paul doing? What are some of the challenges he still faces?
It’s about having dizzy spells, which means you can fall and have other injuries. It’s about fainting from the dizzy spells, things like that. If we go to an event now, even just in a friend’s home, after a few minutes, he’ll be sitting down. He cannot stand up for a long time. But that’s all doable. People are suffering so much worse.
But imagine [the attacker] making our home a crime scene, breaking in, finding his way into our bedroom. “Where’s Nancy? Where’s Nancy?”… And what was really sad about it, Katie, was that people on the other side of the aisle were making a joke of it. And you wonder, What is it about these people that they think it’s funny that someone is assaulted? And not only someone but our system is assaulted, and other families are fearing, Why should I go into [politics] if this could be one of the consequences? People made jokes about it. People laughed. That’s just not right for our country.
It’s gross. But you have to remember that this follows the context of the former president/current candidate for president. I don’t like using his name, but he’s saying to the mobs in his events, “If you beat up the press, don’t worry about it. I’ll pay for your lawyers. I’ll pay your legal fees.” What is that? We’re talking about freedom of the press, which is the guardian of our democracy, of our freedom, of all of the First Amendment rights.
And, of course, all of that culminated in what happened on January 6.
On January 6, an insurrection was incited by the President of the United States. It was horrible. And now he tries to distance himself from it. But he refused to send the National Guard, his Secretary of Defense, his secretary of the Army — that’s the chain of command for that [kind of event]. And now they’re lying about it, too. It’s really a sad situation, and it’s no use even talking about it. All we have to do is win the election and hope that the Republicans will take back their party. It’s really turned into a cult, in my view. The Grand Old Party did great things for our country and provided great leaders in our country, and whether we disagreed on some policy matters, we were all patriots and respected each other. That’s not the case with this guy. So if they take back their party, it’s up to them to decide what that party is, of course. But it shouldn’t be what we’re seeing now.
What do you make of people who have now minimized the threat of bodily harm and the damage that was done on January 6? And the fact that former President Trump says he will pardon the insurrectionists?
What happened that day was horrible. It was an assault, of course, on the beautiful Capitol, which is an emblem of a temple of democracy to the world, under the dome that Lincoln built during the Civil War. During the Civil War, people said, “Don’t continue the dome, save the steel and the manpower for the war.” And he said, “No, I have to show that we are resilient,” and went forward. And these people came in with Confederate flags, even a Nazi flag, under Lincoln’s dome. So that was horrible, optically, to the world. Then, it was an assault on our Constitution, which was more significant because this was the day we were supposed to certify the election, a peaceful transfer of power of the results of the electoral college for the president. Appalling.
And, of course, it was an assault on Congress, which had the responsibility to [certify the election]. So Congress, the Capitol, and the Constitution were all assaulted intentionally that day because of what the day meant. Thank God the vice president honored his responsibilities, according to the Constitution.
But following all the damage and danger, we go back in and say, “Well, we’ll just have to do it, we’re going to the floor.” And Chuck [Schumer] and Mitch [McConnell], we all agree that would be the course of action. So we went back. But when we went back, overwhelmingly, the Republicans, including their leadership, voted not to accept the results of the electoral college. It was so saddening. So when you ask, what do you think of Mitch McConnell and what [those Republicans] ended up doing — just walking away from their remarks and then supporting him for president? Mitch is a serious person in the Congress of the United States. I feel very sorry for him. I don’t know how he lives with his decision, but that’s his decision.
The Democrats have been losing white working-class voters for some time. And they seem to be gravitating toward Donald Trump. Why do you think that’s happened? And why do you think Trump supporters feel that he cares more about them than the Democrats do?
Well, because he’s a good snake-oil salesman. You have to give him credit — he gets out there and sells a bill of goods. But what does he do? Give a tax break to the top 1 percent? He doesn’t care about people, but he gives them the impression that he does.
Joe Biden [created] 15 million jobs. The other guy has the worst job record since Herbert Hoover. And these people are voting for him? 15 million jobs, wages rising, unemployment down, the list goes on of things that have affected people that they may not be fully aware of.
Elections are not about what you have done — they’re about the future. So when we go out there, we have to make sure that people see the contrast for the future, for their kitchen table, not the boardroom table or the cabinet table. [It’s about] their needs, whether it’s about how democracy affects them; freedom of a woman’s right to choose the size, timing, or if they have a family; the freedom to choose who you love, rather than somebody in Washington, DC or your state capital doing that for you; issues that relate to job opportunities…
[The GOP] wants to do away with the Department of Education, [which will impact] children in economically disadvantaged areas. Nothing brings more money to the economy and the National Treasury than investments in education — early childhood, K through 12, higher ed, post-grad, lifetime learning for our workers. Nothing brings more money to the treasury, helps people reach their fulfillment, and helps our country be more competitive and successful. People rise up with education, and [Trump’s supporters] want to do away with the Department of Education. You know why? Because they teach critical thinking in those public schools. So we have a difference of opinion.
You can’t even imagine what they would do to the Department of Defense. I would refer you to a wonderful article today about how bad [Project 2025] is.
I want to ask you about the current political situation. In the book, you talk about the Trump family and basically say that there should have been a family intervention. You write, “If former President Trump’s family and staff truly understood his disregard, both for the fundamentals of the law and for basic rules, and if they had reckoned with his personal instability over not winning the election, they should have staged an intervention.” But with all due respect, when I read that, I wondered, Couldn’t the same thing be said about President Biden? Should people have earlier determined that perhaps he didn’t have the physical stamina to endure a reelection campaign and put the Democratic Party in a better position for this election?
Whether you think there’s stamina to run again and serve for four years is quite different than [the question of] whether you are undermining our democracy. And that’s what Donald Trump was doing — this was about his harm to the country, the instability that he was bringing to it, and the anti-patriotic attitude he had. It wasn’t about whether he was physically healthy enough to do this or that. It was what was happening in his distortion of the facts and how he was misrepresenting to the public. Two completely different situations.
[Biden] had an enormously successful NATO summit, the 75th anniversary of NATO in Washington, DC. A matter of days ago, he affected a virtuoso performance in bringing home the prisoners. It was a very complicated deal involving many countries willing to surrender prisoners, in order to get ours and other prisoners out. It was masterful. So he has been functioning A-plus. Whether he would do that for another four years is a different story. But in the present, we haven’t lost anything with his service.
Whereas with that other guy, we’d be getting our democracy shrunken and our freedoms diminished. And why is this happening? How could he be standing up there and saying, “If you beat up the press, I’ll pay your bills”? Is that a normal thing to say? Does that seem normal? No, I don’t think it does. But I don’t think it’s the equivalent of somebody saying somebody didn’t do well in a debate. I worked with Biden quite a bit but usually earlier in the day, when he was more in charge than what I saw that night. That night [of the debate] was the first I saw it. But he’s not running, the other guy is.
Let’s discuss Kamala Harris’s candidacy, which seems to be off to a very good start. What are you most worried about between now and election day?
Well, as I like to say, “We don’t agonize, we organize.” And I want to just make sure that we have our three Ms: mobilization at the grassroots level, which is owning the ground to make sure we’re getting out the vote. Then Messaging: the boldest, most progressive message.
And then the Money to get that done. Obviously, [Vice President Harris] is raising money at the grassroots level, and many of [these donors] are new, small donors adding to the coffers to mobilize with a message that is, again, unifying for our country. So if we have that in place, I think we will do well.
But none of it matters as much as the candidate. What is the vision of the candidate for our country? What are the values that that person brings to the table? What is the empathy that she has in her heart for the American people? What is the commitment to the values of our founders for our democracy? The gratitude to our men and women in uniform fighting for our freedom, and the aspirations of our children as we go forward? I feel very confident that Kamala will be able to convey that. The other candidate doesn’t wanna talk about kitchen table issues because they’re about the boardroom table, not the kitchen table. So they’re questioning her race and this or that, which just shows you the bankruptcy of their ideas.
These days, I often think about my own mortality and what I’ve contributed — I hope I’ve done something good in the world. When you think about your legacy, Speaker Pelosi, what do you hope it will be?
Well, I don’t think about that too much, but I think yours will be that young women around the country have looked to you for a while now with enjoyment, pride, and confidence that they might be able to do something similar, because you have shared your personal experiences with great generosity of spirit. So thank you for that.
From my standpoint, I just want women to know their power, to be ready for whatever opportunity comes along, and when it does, to be themselves, because there’s no one like them in the world. And I give them the same advice that Lindy gave me. She gave it to me because I said, “I have three important titles in the Democratic Party. I should probably give one up.” She said, “Darling, no man would ever make that statement.” Know your power and use it, she said, which I did. And here I am.
Thank you so much — I promise I wasn’t fishing for compliments. Is there any advice would you give to Kamala Harris? And what do you think are going to be the most important issues of this campaign?
Well, I always say the same thing to women: Be yourself.
[I would say] you are the Vice President of the United States — you have had opportunity beyond description in that role. You know the challenges, and you know the possibilities. So take your priorities out there, and be yourself.
And she’s a great communicator. She knows what’s at stake in a larger sense.
When people ask me what are the most important issues [facing America], I say our children, our children, our children — their health, their education, the economic security of their families, safe neighborhoods in which they can thrive free from gun violence, and a world at peace in which they can reach their fulfillment. But we come right back to that kitchen table. Some of those issues are democracy issues, too: The right to choose to have a family, the right to choose who you love, the right to choose the field you might work in.
I feel very confident about the election, especially now. The enthusiasm is great, and that’s the energy that runs a campaign. Kamala will be great.
This interview has been lightly edited for length/clarity.
