Scott Shafer: Yeah, in fact, those problems are continuing. And Marisa, we originally had this conversation with Nancy Pelosi scheduled for Tuesday of this week, and we had to move it to Monday because she had to be back in D.C. And of course, we this was all set up months ago. We had no idea everything that was being happening, including the war between Israel and Hamas. So it was you know, there was so much to talk about.
Marisa Lagos: Yeah. I mean, as somebody who I’m pretty sure never takes a day off, even Pelosi seemed like it had been quite a week or two. Right. I mean, you know, there was obviously Senator Dianne Feinstein’s death, the kind of, you know.
Scott Shafer: Emotional impact.
Marisa Lagos: The outpouring and and all of the things that I think Pelosi wanted to be and felt that she should be out around that the appointment of Lafond, a butler to the Senate and then, as you said, this kind of mess in the House which you know just it was interesting watching her because she’s definitely in her element in a way now that she was not when she was the leader of the Democrats.
Scott Shafer: Yeah, well, she’s like kind of, you know, unshackled in a way. I mean, she she she’s cut loose from having to represent the entire caucus. And now she’s from, quote unquote, liberal San Francisco. She can really speak her mind. Unplugged is the word I was looking for, which she very much is plugged in to everything. And it does. You do wonder like, yes, Hakeem Jeffries is the, you know, the minority leader. But you’ve got to think they’re on the phone quite regularly talking about strategy and you know how to play certain things. And, you know, the caucus came out very united against helping Kevin McCarthy hold on to the speakership. Seven Republicans kind of bailed on him. And, you know, it was interesting to hear her thoughts on why didn’t Democrats help McCarthy. And, you know.
Marisa Lagos: But you say she’s unplugged, but she’s still Pelosi. And like, let’s be clear, you will hear this again and again. Pelosi says what Pelosi wants. Like there is no there are many times where she just sort of like heard our question and kind of came back to it later. But she definitely is very much in sort of charge of her faculties when it comes to talking to the press and knowing when she would and wouldn’t make news, for example, when we pushed her on. Look, you know, at the time it was a real contest between Jim Jordan, who is more of a sort of MAGA extremist Republican, and Scalise, who is also, I think in past years would have been considered a pretty hard right guy, but in these days is more of an establishment Republican. And, you know, I think she made very clear she did not want to weigh in on that, saying why would I help them or hurt them by saying I like them.
Scott Shafer: As if, you know, saying something nice might actually hurt them, although I think it’s proves pretty clear reading between the lines. She does not think much of Jim Jordan, who founded the Freedom Caucus, but I’m sure she’s not buddies with Scalise, although they are both Italian. So she didn’t bite on that one. But yeah, so, you know, all these things that I guess are going to emerge. And then of course, you know, McCarthy has kind of offered himself up if they can’t, you know, get the votes for either Scalise or Jordan, I can’t really see that happening. But who knows they right now, because clearly, although they you know, Scalise had a plurality of the votes or a majority of the caucus, he’s nowhere near the 218 he needs to win.
Marisa Lagos: Yeah, I mean, I will say to one of the things you also hear, I think Pelosi has really mastered this ability. That’s very rare, I think, for women in politics to both be very confident without sounding sort of braggadocious. And so it would point, you know, you you say you’ve called yourself a master legislator. She’s like, yeah, I have. You know, and then there’s a couple other funny moments like that when, you know, we’ll get to this next week because we actually have a second episode with her out of this. But asking her about the future of her congressional seat, her daughter Christine, who’s rumored to want to run, was sitting in the front row, kind of kind of egging her on the whole time. So, you know, I just think she again, it was clear that she was sort of enjoying some of the politics of what’s going on, not having to be in the driver’s seat.
Scott Shafer: Yeah, she came dressed in like a lavender pantsuit, looked very comfortable. And so, as you said, we’re going to be hearing in just a moment the first or not not exactly the first half, but half of the interview. And then next week she’ll be talking more about the fans of Butler, the thoughts about that Senate seat, which we still don’t know at this as we speak right here today, whether Lafond, about who’s going to run for the six year full term. We also talked a little bit about Paul Pelosi, her husband, who was with her at the memorial for Senator Feinstein. And, you know, she said a little bit more about him that than she has in the past. And I think they said we’ll hear more of that next week. And then a little revelation. Thanks to Mark Barabak from the L.A. Times. We asked her about her apparent fondness for the Grateful Dead.
Marisa Lagos: I mean, just color me shocked. If there was a band, I would have thought that Nancy Pelosi would be in and too, it would not have been the Grateful Dead. But she’s been to many concerts, including the allegedly final one, you know, one of many Final Dead concerts she’s referring to.
Scott Shafer: Bobbie, I was like, that’s got to be Bob Weir, she says, Oh, yeah, Bobby.
Marisa Lagos: Bobby. Bobby. And, you know, gave a shout out to U2 as well and did clear up a rumor. Apparently Paul Pelosi does not actually do her shopping.
Scott Shafer: Yeah, that was that’s been out there in the ether Ethernet Internet for a long time. But yeah, she does her own shopping. Yeah. So we’re going to hear all of that. And then, as you said, tune in next week for the second part of this conversation. She is, you know, 83 years old, but, you know, very clearly in charge of, you know, the sort of the environment that she excels in, which is the arena.
Marisa Lagos: Brushed them off.
Scott Shafer: Yeah, she did, But she said she’s ready to go. All right. We’re going to take a short break. And when we come back, we’re going to hear our conversation with Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi. You’re listening to Political Breakdown from KQED Public Radio.
Scott Shafer: Please welcome Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi. All right. Well, what are we going to talk about tonight?
Nancy Pelosi: What has changed.
Scott Shafer: We know that you and Mayor Breed yesterday, I believe, were at a rally in support of Israel. Obviously, there’s a terrible war that’s underway right now. Hundreds have died on both sides. And we’re wondering, first of all, just since this is at the top of the news, what do you see as the most short term implications of all this?
Nancy Pelosi: Well, thank you. It’s wonderful to be with you. Thank you all for being here. Change of date. That’s always well, that’s the life I lead. When we accepted the invitation and so honored to be with all of you, whenever that was, what, two weeks ago or something longer?
Scott Shafer: Months.
Nancy Pelosi: Months. Okay, well, just in the last ten days, we lost our dear Diane. The invasion of Israel. So horrible. And, of course, the confusion on the other side of the aisle. This yesterday we were at a temple. It was a big outpouring of support for Israel. Also, I was able to say that Mike Pappas was there, head of interfaith council, and he said that that Christians, Catholics, everyone, every religion was mourning for the Israelis and sending their support. This is something so tragic. You know, there are many injustices in the world, one thing and another. But there is no excuse for the barbaric violence that was we saw happen in Israel. I had a friend whose niece, Grande, whose niece was killed, her husband was killed and the infant baby were killed there. Little children, other little children, they had hid in a closet and they were later rescued. But what the barbaric nature of that, there’s no it’s. Some people say it’s unforgivable. I don’t like to think that anything is unforgivable, but it’s very close to unforgivable that that would that that would happen. So when you say where do we go from here? We always have to see everything as an opportunity to see how we can bring people together. This is really hard. And we’re hard because we don’t. We’ll see what happens in the end. The violence that appears to be continuing.
Scott Shafer: When you say it’s hard, what do you mean?
Nancy Pelosi: Well, when human life is taken in a way. Now, again, are there countries that are at war? I have I feel the same way about Putin in Ukraine, kidnaping children, killing and raping women. I don’t know if the rape is happening in Israel, but that’s what’s happening in Ukraine. There’s no that’s using. Violence against civilians as a weapon of war. Don’t be a coward. You won’t go for war. Fight militarily. That’s not something we love. But don’t take it out on the children, the moms, the families here, they kidnap. You can see them kidnaping little children. 80 year old grandmoms. All the rest. So it’s it’s very hard. To overcome that kind of loss in your family and your community and in your country. But let us pray. Let us pray that some good can come of it. They were observing the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War, and people said that some good things that was not a good thing, a war. But actually, there was a path to some. Better situation following that. Maybe something will come here, but it’s very hard to see and it will take a while, I think.
Marisa Lagos: Do you think? I mean, we’ve seen President Biden call this Israeli government the most extreme ever, President Netanyahu. Prime Minister Netanyahu has been, you know, working on dismantling the court and I think, you know, isolating the settlements. I want, you know, the Gaza Strip. Does all of that complicate the way that you and others in Washington can respond to this?
Nancy Pelosi: No, I mean, I’m not a big fan of the current government of of Israel. And all that you say is of concern, but none of it. None of it makes any difference when when military force comes in and starts killing civilians and kidnaping and the rest. So I don’t see any relationship between the two.
Marisa Lagos: Do you think that we’re hearing tonight that there may be a move to link Ukraine aid and Israeli aid and Congress? What do you think about that?
Nancy Pelosi: Well, I think that we have to do both. So I’m okay with linking it, but we don’t really even have a functioning House of Representatives and hopefully when we do, that will be facilitated. But the there is strong support for Ukraine aid in the Congress of the United States, bipartisan House and Senate. There’s strong support for Israeli assistance to Israel. One of the issues that we’re all facing is the fate of Americans in Israel. Some are visitors, some are by Israeli America. They have dual citizenship. All of them are of concern to us, not any more than any other Israeli. But nonetheless, that’s our responsibility.
Scott Shafer: Well, let’s shift to what’s happening in Washington and or not happening. I know you’re as we said, you’re going back tomorrow. There’s one way or the other. There will eventually be a speaker.
Nancy Pelosi: Yes.
Scott Shafer: How are you and your caucus thinking about that vote?
Nancy Pelosi: Well, just so you know, I mean, I think it’s important to note because the things people say, I think, no, that’s not how it works. You have an election. Somebody wins. The party that wins, selects, nominates and chooses the Speaker of the House. So when I see on TV, they say the Democrats and eight Republicans took down the speaker. No Republicans took down their speaker. That I met when I all the times I was elected leader or speaker for 20 years. I never had one Republican vote, nor would it have been appropriate. It’s up to the party to elect its leaders, whether it’s the speaker or the leader. It’s up to the party. So I haven’t the I would be the last person to act ask about what’s going on in the Republican caucus or second last. But right up there. Right up there. And I just hope and pray that they can come to their own unity. But it is it’s very difficult because people said, well, why didn’t you all vote for them and this or that? We said, well, if that isn’t our role, it’s up to them to select.
As I said, now we have our major differences. For example, right now we’re having a fight with them about they want to cut 30% from the food for which women, infant children for for food, for food. Out of the mouths of babes are, what, 80%, 70 to 80% for low income heating. Assistance for mostly poor seniors in our country. The list goes on and on about the things that they want to cut on. They have Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, all of that on the table. Why? Because they’re concerned about the budget. They’re concerned about feeding babies. But they weren’t concerned when they get a $2 trillion tax cut to the richest people in America. And it was. But with interest to the national debt, $2 trillion, 83% of it went to the top 1%, not creating any vitality in our. But they didn’t worry about the national debt or the budget then.
Marisa Lagos: I mean, what I’m hearing you say is that this is not Democrats responsibility. And it seems, from what we’ve heard, that speaker, former Speaker McCarthy, didn’t offer Democrats anything. Didn’t come to the table to talk to try to save his speakership. So, I mean, what do you want to see done and what what does it matter? Like, what can the Congress not do in this moment because there’s no leadership?
Nancy Pelosi: Well, we want him to have a speakership because the only thing the acting speaker can do is have a speaker’s election. Nothing else.
Scott Shafer: Didn’t take away the office, though. Didn’t they also take away your office?
Nancy Pelosi: I don’t care about that. What I care about is taking food out of the mouths of babies. I had a ceremonial office where I had visitors, heads of state, heads of parliaments, and all the rest come through. If I don’t have to do that, I could spend more time on politics. But nonetheless, we won’t go into that. That’s the most important thing we can do, is win the next election absolutely, positively. But yeah, that, that housekeeping stuff, that’s nothing but the but the what is something is that they have to be able to come together and I hope that they will come together, elect their speaker so that we can have the debate, that the American people can see the difference and try to find our common ground, if that’s possible. But we have our major differences. There’s just no question about that. One thing we do, two things we do agree on. One is the assistance to Israel in this terrible situation. And we we’ve had bipartisan, bicameral House and Senate, Democrat and Republican, support for Israel all the time and then, of course, for the Ukraine as well. These are urgent matters. We need a speaker so that we can get that done.
Scott Shafer: I can understand, you know, you want to wade into the Republican politics, but you have worked with, you know, a number of Republican, right, as Speaker Newt Gingrich, John Boehner, who cried at the opening of the unveiling of your portrait. You know, Ryan.
Nancy Pelosi: Cried for a lot of reasons.
Scott Shafer: But so I guess what I’m getting at is there seem to be two, maybe three, if you include McCarthy, because he’s left the door open to coming back. But Steve Scalise and Jim Jordan, founder of the Freedom Caucus, you must have a do you see a difference between them or. McCarthy The three of them, yeah.
Marisa Lagos: Especially given Jordan sort of involvement in pushing the big lie about the 2020 election and filing lawsuits to undermine it.
Nancy Pelosi: Yeah. Well, here’s the thing. I’ve been there a long time and I have worked with Republicans and quite frankly, coming from San Francisco, I mean, it’s of all the titles, speaker, leader, whip and all that, nothing is more exciting than to walk on the floor and say, I speak for the people of San Francisco. That’s that’s really exciting. And so we have our. Priorities. And we are the city of Saint Francis and we have our values and the rest. So when you go on the floor, you welcome the vitality of differences of opinion and debate, and hopefully you can find your common ground. And that has always been the case.
I’ve admired so many of the Republicans that I have worked with in an earlier day, whether it was for the environment, whether it was for human rights, So many issues where we work together and I’m appropriator and or appropriations, it’s very as far as bipartisanship as it could get. And same thing on intelligence, my other committee, a very bipartisan up until a certain point when Newt Gingrich came along, he really he it was a a different day. He would give them things to put in their phone, in their car when they go home saying call them traitors, call them treasonous. This was a that was the crossing the threshold. As bad as he was, these guys just put him in the shade because they it really is a different breed of cat. So the idea that you would go in. I always say to my own constituents, we don’t have 218. San Francisco, we’re trying, but we don’t have to wait in even when we have to. 18 Democrats, there’s differences of opinion.
And again, our founders, our founders, they did this beautiful thing with the democracy. Fortunately, they made our founding document, the Constitution. Amendable so that we could correct some of the compromises that they had to make. But it was about a democracy where you had the differences of opinion and you debated and you didn’t resent a difference of opinion. You welcomed it. Hope to win the debate, at least get a high split on your side for whatever solution there would be there. But nonetheless, win some, lose some, but always respect the people who sent each person there from their own district that I want them to respect my constituents. So. So. But this is very different now.
Marisa Lagos: So if you’re looking at a choice between a Representative Scalise and a Representative Jordan from a Democratic perspective, does it matter which one is in charge of the House?
Nancy Pelosi: That’s up to the Republicans.
Scott Shafer: Does it matter to you?
Nancy Pelosi: That’s up to the Republicans.
Marisa Lagos: All right, all right.
Nancy Pelosi: If I told you who I preferred it wouldn’t help that person. If I told you what I thought of Jim Jordan, that would be awful too.
Scott Shafer: Do you have an unnamed preference? Do you have an unnamed preference?
Nancy Pelosi: Hakeem Jeffries. I’m determined he’s going to be speaker as soon as possible.
Marisa Lagos: Let me ask about this impact on Democratic politics. Do you think the chaos happening right now McCarthy is ousting? The infighting among Republicans will help Democrats pick up seats, particularly all those purple districts in California that you guys are targeting?
Nancy Pelosi: Well in California. Thanks to all of you in California. When I first started to say, people said to me, you should run for leadership. I didn’t have any intent, but actually I didn’t intend to run for Congress. But people said, you have to run. You have to run. Same thing for leadership. We had 26 Democrats and 26 Republicans. And I said I was former chair of the party. I know how to do this. You just give me California. And that night, 2000, we had went from 26, 26 to 31, 21, picked up ten seats in California. And then we grew and we grew. And that was really largely how Democrats took back the House of Representatives. Thank you, California. But we also won in other parts of the country as well. The. We’re not about. Oh, they’re terrible. It’s about what we present to the American people. This is about a vision. Why? Why are we there? We’re there for a better.
This president has been great. Joe Biden has been so visionary in how we advance an economy that is from the bottom up and the middle in, not from the trickle down. 83% going to the top 1% in all of our legislation, whether it was a recovery, the rescue package, whether it was a bipartisan infrastructure bill, we had 13 Republican votes, but it was bipartisan. The CHIPS Act, the PACT Act for our veterans, whether it was the I.R.A., the biggest investment in protecting our environment, saving our planet, and the history not only of our country, but of any country. All of it, though, he had with a system of equity, justice, inclusion, so that many more people could have access to the education, to the training, to the apprenticeships, to the decision making as to what infrastructure they would like to see in their communities and their percentages. He had a big percentage that should go to. Completely neighborhood oriented, community oriented decision making in that.
So this is about a vision of inclusion for our country. It’s about knowledge of the issues that he has been there even longer than I have, much longer than I have. He’s been there, knows the issues. He’s strategic. He’s a legislator, a senator, vice president, a president of United, a vision, knowledge, judgment, strategic thinker. But that’s all up here and in his heart, the most empathetic president you could find. He knows and he cares. And that’s what we have to get across because it makes a difference to our democracy. So this whole class is the backbone of our democracy. I believe the middle class has a union label on it. And and our democratic priorities make it stronger. But nonetheless, this president and our Democratic Congress have a lot to be proud of about. We had a vision. We had a plan. Vision without a plan, a fantasy. Vision with a plan: victory.
Scott Shafer: You described the president more or less as a mensch. You described a former speaker with a different M word, moron.
Nancy Pelosi: I didn’t say he was a moron. I said what he said was moronic. That was different.
Scott Shafer: Where do you, as somebody who has you are have been called the, you know, the most effective speaker in modern times. You yourself have called yourself a master legislator.
Nancy Pelosi: Yeah.
Scott Shafer: Where do you think —
Nancy Pelosi: I have.
Scott Shafer: Where do you think the former speaker fell short?
Nancy Pelosi: Which one are we talking about? Oh, yeah, the leading one. Well, I think that as I said at the time, it was becoming the incredibly shrinking speakership. The speakership has awesome responsibility and therefore power, but you have to be able to use it in a way that builds consensus so that you have sustainability for what you do. But in order to win the speakership, he gave away so many of his, shall we say, avenues to success, including saying that one person could vacate the chair. And that that was most unfortunate because, well, maybe there were eight. Maybe we said just make it more or make it the speaker, the majority leader or the majority whip or somebody who has brings more heft to it, that that’s just process the other hand.
There was a thought that in our on our side of the aisle, he didn’t keep his word in terms of the president, agreeing with the president on the debt ceiling. This we’re going to proceed in this way. We’re going to build our appropriations bills around this amount. And then he walked away from it. He said, what’s his name was responsible for January 6th, and then he kissed his ring. You know, that kind of stuff. You know, how can you rely on somebody? Because your word is the most important thing that you have in all of that. And situations change. But then you have to acknowledge that. And I think that I say this carefully, but I think that people didn’t trust his word.
Scott Shafer: And that’s it for this edition of Political Breakdown, where a production of KQED Public Radio.
Marisa Lagos: Our engineers today are Christopher Beal and Jim Bennett. Special thanks as well to the KQED live team, including Ryan Davis and Lance Gardner. I’m Marisa Lagos.