Pelosi's Power: Judy Lemons (interview) | FRONTLINE

so let's just start in baltimore back in the 1940s who were nancy pelosi's mother and father well from my knowledge he may have been the mayor but it was a matriarchal family and from what i understand and have gleaned from some of nancy's conversations and and reading about some of the history at that time that her mother really was very very dominant in the family and probably a community social worker working out of their own home on albemarle later her father came to congress but i do believe even with his position that her mother was probably the real powerhouse in the family and that nancy has gotten so much of her inspiration from her mother and her brother had always said that nancy was a thoroughbred and i remember on the day nancy was sworn in in 1987 we had a small dinner at a hotel that evening and tommy got up and talked about his sister in the most glowing terms and with humor and love and everything but he described her as the thoroughbred and to me personally the sort of capsule i have of nancy is that she's a female phenom that she is just an extraordinary person in watching her career from i was there at the beginning and for most almost half of her career and i just was so amazed there were some people who would go back and say well nancy went from the kitchen to the convention and i think that that was really a mistake and not realizing that nancy had a lot of statewide involvement in california politics and i'm sorry don't get too far ahead let's go back in the time capsule we're in baltimore tommy the elder big powerful as you say big powerful presence big dynamic outside the world but inside letting the favor file is big nancy uh little nancy's mother she stopped her from having her own business nancy must have seen all that too in a world of four brothers and a powerful father what did she learn about sexism at an early age yeah and and being the the only girl the youngest and of course i wasn't there so i can only speculate what that how she digested that and how she incorporated it in her world view moving forward but i would think that it was a real eye-opener and that she was in you know in that era where you started to realize wow things don't look quite right and i don't feel as comfortable as i think i could feel if i had more opportunity and by the way why don't i have more opportunity so i think a lot of those questions started to arise most likely for nancy and a lot of young women at in at that stage and that it's questioning you begin to question you come into early adulthood you raise your family and you you just begin to question the status quo and why why isn't there a better space for women and it was well you know you have women's issues well nancy didn't think that there were just women's issues she thought that women should be involved in every aspect of our society our world our governance you know from international issues and she proved that in her career that every issue has to do and she will always say this children children children that's why i came to congress and everything that we do affects future generations and children so i think that was a very compelling force for her and to to change the system to break out of it she had ideas she had energy she had vigor she had a huge contribution to make to the world and why not why not have a chance and so if you have much intelligence at all you start to question these things when you read the biographies this goes to your point nancy pelosi basically had two options be a nun or be a mom to be a nun or a mom she it was like be a nun or run and she ran but okay most men by the time nancy came to congress what was she 46 years old or something most men by that time have had a seamless career up until that age in those times nancy came at age 46 this is her second career she had the career with the kids and you know five kids in what six or seven years can you imagine having that many kids i mean traveling back and forth from baltimore to san francisco with five kids under the age of six or seven and uh so she she that was formidable she picked up some skills there's nothing else she could organize chaos right right yeah she can deal with a raucous caucus then as you say her career starts at 46. do you think when she got married to paul she literally was putting her political ambitions aside and knew that the day would come does she set it aside for a while and then and then decide to step back in well of course i can only imagine but what i imagine is it was love you know that she fell in love she was in love with her husband she was in love with her children and that was that part of her life and that involved you know true and strong commitment but that was out of love that she had in her heart no matter what and i don't think at that point when you feel that kind of love and the strong urge to nurture and to do that project if you call it a project to do that project well and that would have always been nancy's motivation to do to take on something big a big family a big move a big change in her life and to do it well so to me that fits in with her personality that i know and i don't think she would have who knows that she would have considered it a sacrifice at that moment that it was look i've taken this on i'm committed and this is done out of love and i intend to see it through so i don't think that she would have considered herself deprived of any opportunity maybe at that point i don't know she may tell you something different when you look back or when she looks back you think maybe you can help us understand what do you think her her biggest setback in life was at that point i'm not aware of anything i've i've heard of some things mostly having to do with loss you know family loss or personal loss or and you know when her father died you know that was a very very difficult time for her i know that she lost a niece to aids from a blood transfusion and there were times and then of course with the death of her mother and but i know that she must have really felt a lot of pain in her life at those times of loss and i don't know if there was a turning point or something that was just so utterly tragic that it moved her to another space of thinking or doing i i don't really know she doesn't talk about things like that no in fact do you know something she talks very little about her personal feelings her personal life it's all work when i worked for nancy it was all about the job and getting it done and doing it well and being proud of her product why do you think why do you think that's her i i think it's her dna i think i and i think tommy's not far from offering the truth she's a thoroughbred it's in her dna she absolutely is is driven she has intense energy that you can't even comprehend and i think that's why she's so underrated and people have not begun to realize the stamina this woman has the stoicism and the drive tell us about that when nancy first comes and you meet her in 1986 or 87 what was the world she was walking into as a brand new uh congress person tell me about the washington world that nancy arrived in well i think you know that was a pretty battering uh special election that she'd been through with you know a whole spectrum of candidates the burton machine had been blown apart gays environment environmentalists and labor and nancy was able to to carve out her own territory in the community of san francisco and she had realized this that in 85 86 she had been the finance director for the senate campaign committee and had been super successful and had become very very close to george mitchell so she didn't come to washington this wasn't this wasn't her first rodeo she was a practice bronco writer she had helped she had totally put together the 84 convention she had been in state politics and state chair she had helped win back and win votes in the senate in 1986 and george mitchell and democratic senators at the time had a dinner to thank nancy pelosi for this and i remember she told the story that she was coming from san francisco and she had brought a a cake that was in the the model of a capital and she was so worried about that cake surviving the trip to she wanted to present it to george mitchell and the new uh democratic senators so she had been tested she was just genetically tough the world she walked into was about appearances over substance as far as women were concerned and it was not an easy time but nancy was the type of person who believed in look listen and learn before you launch and she did that but you have to realize within a year and a half of her winning the special election all of these tumultuous things that happened there was a san francisco earthquake we were going to war in iraq there was the aids epidemic and tiananmen square a multitude of things that converged in just a brief time after she came to congress and the way she approached those things was pretty amazing and then you had in congress the old bulls the committee chairs one of her first really courageous steps was voting for not to censure or punish uh austin murphy from pennsylvania and the pennsylvania delegation was solidly behind him and it was a a voting conflict that somehow his vote was in question was he really there did someone else vote for him was he back in his district and it was a small num she was a freshman small number of people who voted not to punish austin murphy and of course mr mirtha was dean of that delegation and very powerful on appropriations and he came up to her afterwards and he said you know what you have a lot of guts for a freshman member of congress to take on a vote like that a vote that you vote where you voted your conscience and you didn't vote with the majority just to be voting with the majority or not to have your head sticking above the hedge for the hedge clippers to come along and so he lauded her on that and they became fast friends so there you have one of the one of the most esteemed i mean he had been very close to tip o'neill and powerful members of congress who nancy had gained attention and and a positive reaction from someone like that and that that did take a lot of courage so she walked into that but people started to see that she had substance and it wasn't all appearance but she'd stand up on the house floor and i would be should be speaking at the lectern and i'd be in the audience there and you could hear male members of congress talking about her appearance they weren't listening to what she was saying it was all about appearance but bit by bit step by step nancy was able to prove her place as a very very strong member of congress and in 1989 with the tiananmen square nancy those were all leadership qualities that nancy was able to use as a platform in fighting for human rights in china and she'd already been well versed in that fighting dictators in central america and human rights was a passion of hers and so she you know was well acquainted with dangerous dictators and i think that that prepared her for trump as well and the the idea that she could be persuasive in a debate count votes and really really work so hard on an issue was really amazing to other members that she was able to get a foothold that way and on the aids crisis her leadership on that and because it was a special election all of the plum committee assignments had been taken she walks in what what does she get government operations but she got banking with international finance subcommittee that allowed her to create the pelosi amendment requiring the world bank to take into consideration environmental concerns on their lending practices so she didn't just sit back and think gee what do you do with international finance she worked it she worked it and the pelosi amendment is is still very active and known and then her leadership on human rights in china and then that morphed into fighting most favored nation status every year that vote would come up in may and then on the local level she worked to save the presidio now a lot of people think oh well how important is that well it is a national park it may be in san francisco but it's national park and we couldn't get the legislation passed to preserve it and a democratic congress with our own secretary of interior it took a republican congress so do you realize what's involved in that in trying to get something done and work with a a really contentious group of people and to make that happen in 1994 was the gingrich revolution and you know it was just an uphill battle but nancy did it if in the beginning at least she's perceived as a party girl as you say they're making fun of her on the floor the men and everything my first question of course is i mean it's clear that she reacts with skill and perseverance sounds like but how did she feel personally how how was that for her when she'd come back to the office or you'd sit around and just talk was it bothering her well she didn't know it i mean i mean those conversations she wouldn't have heard but you know she made a comment one time oh did you feel excluded did you uh and she said well i never got invited to a meeting you know and something about going into gephardt's office but the only time she ever went in his office was you know that she really hadn't been invited to meetings and that it was a rare occasion that she'd even you know be considered that way so i think she felt it did she moan and groan did she complain about it no that's not how she is that's not who she is she is very stoic things roll right off her back she picks up and goes right on to the next battle there's these tuesday night dinners are just wonderful said we talked to chuck schumer and and despite the sexism she keeps going to these different things and you know there's the great story about how none of them they're all the men are talking about having childhood how difficult it was tell me about that why was she why didn't you go and tell me that story if you if you know well i i've only heard the story like you have but they were buddies and they could laugh at each other they could be amused by each other and and they could poke fun and believe me nancy pelosi would have stood up and said oh yeah you guys you guys think you know about birthing babies and she and barbara boxer would be sitting there and said now let us tell you a few things and but if i think it was done in a good-natured way i don't think it was a way that that wow you know they really they're really out of it or anything it was just uh the camaraderie they had in that group and they understood each other and they called each other out too but i think that that i love that story molly ball in her biography of the speaker talks about that in order to be taken seriously she had to master what molly calls hard power you know how to deliver the goods how to deliver votes how to raise money and the mechanics of politics she probably learned baltimore from what i can tell uh was that how she got taken seriously and you've already given the list is that how she did it hard power well i know she worked hard at being powerful at gaining power but when she had a national crisis like the aids epidemic an international situation like tiananmen square and then working nine years to preserve the presidio and succeeding with that in a republican congress and in 2001 was the highest ranking democrat to oppose the iraq war she does not have fear and she follows her conscience and the elements of her leadership have to do with her persuasiveness her commitment and her ability to count votes and to appeal to people about a particular avenue that might concern them or be appropriate for their district or for or something they've worked on i mean she can hone in like a laser with members and figuring out what is meaningful for them and how do you form this argument in a way that will bring it home to another member of congress to be persuaded why why does he run for whip so she's there about 15 years or so and she right i guess three yeah 15 years or so and she runs for whip why whip and why would she do it why would she step up i mean i've heard all kinds of explanations that she didn't think the men were pulling it off what do you think what did she say she wouldn't come out and say these things but what i saw on her was just pure competence and uh up against a world where you know she felt like the caucus could do more she felt like the caucus should be more involved and that the talents covering the spectrum of the caucus should be more inclusive and that leadership should be looking at individual members and showcasing their abilities their backgrounds where they came from what they can bring to make a contribution to furtherance of of good governance by democrats in congress so i think that it for her it was like something she'd never say but she must have felt that she had competence and that she could do a better job she has no fear and she felt like she had an important contribution to make and that it would be worthwhile to the furtherance of the issues she cared about in congress and the issues she felt that democrats should champion in congress what our party should be about and i think that she just felt like a woman in the house could do a better job that's the question for you i think is does it matter that nancy pelosi is a woman does it matter that she was a woman at that time oh i think so i think there was a tremendous resentment and even the attacks that came later from the far right that number one she was a woman number two she was a smart woman number three she was a smart woman from san francisco and there's a lot of ire that gets stirred up about the co that particular combination and she possessed that combination combination but she used it she weaponized it in a way i mean she really really put that together to use it for good forces in championing the things that she believed in whether it was nationally i mean you know fighting the war taking on china and when uh bush jr was in office pushing back on social security i mean when you look at the things that she accomplished and i think what she been with six or seven presidents during the since 87 at the the end of reagan's term starting there and how she was able to push back and promote the things that she thought democrats cared about that were instilled in our dna as democrats to champion social security to fight for aca and a friend of mine had dinner with kathleen sebelius at the time after aca had passed and this friend said well can you tell me how in the world we got the affordable care act and she said i have two words for you nancy pelosi she said that's how it happened she said there were people at high levels in the white house who wanted to do it incrementally and nancy said i didn't come here to do this in increments i came here to get the best product that we can for this time and we have our votes lined up and i intend to try to do it and she was the force behind that so that's how that's how she used her power there's a story that when she finally is the whip and the first woman member of the gang of eight to go to the oval office to be in the white house and the story goes and she's looking around she realizes talk a little bit about that did she ever talk to you about her feelings when she noticed hey i'm at the highest levels here and no woman has ever been here before and what she thought the impact of her being there might be for women oh i i think so and i think i think she really loved the idea that young women girls and young women would be inspired and she's one of her sayings is you can't be what you can't see and she said i want girls and young women to see what women can do and what it's like to lead and it's not easy but this is what can happen and this would is what can be realized in your careers yesterday this little five-year-old gave me this picture and it's nancy pelosi in the capitol but she's put the blinds down on the window because the sun was coming in and this little office over here is zoe lofgren she said that's zoe's office and here's the statue of freedom up here and i think that's true there there was a i worked with a fellow who was from the netherlands and his eight-year-old daughter was just enthralled by nancy pelosi and i said well let me get let me get the book know your power and have nancy sign it and send it to her and he's and they were living in australia then and he sent me a picture of her and there she is sitting in her chair reading this book she was just fascinated and these are just two examples of hundreds and thousands of young girls and young women who see what nancy's done who are inspired motivated and realize that women do have a seat at the table women do have a place in governance and in leadership the attacks on nancy target her looks very familiar to her from the 80s and 90s in congress i can't i can't imagine that it doesn't get under her skin the president of the united states is after you but we've talked to so many people saying no she has a really thick skin but you know her well enough to know it must have it must have been hard personally to get that kind of blow back nancy pelosi doesn't cry nancy pelosi does not moan or groan or complain she would come back in the office maybe she had had this vote on mfn and lost come back to the office just start writing thank you letters to every single person who voted with her with the personalized edits and on to the next project this is true she does not sit back and wallow for a minute she doesn't she barely breathes because she's going on to the next project she would come in and maybe kick her shoes off but but it was okay we got work to do and she it would never be about her how she felt and maybe she would say something to her husband or her family but from our perspective as staff and in the office nancy now she might be angry at times about something that had misfired or hadn't gone in a predictable way but she was never one to sit back and just say wow what are we going to do now how do how how do we regroup no she was already by the time she'd walk back from the vote or whatever confrontation to the office she'd already was thinking about the next step and how you how you recover how you promote the next step how you move on that's why i say she's a female phenom that's just how she functions and it is really phenomenal and i think that she does not get the credit she deserves she should be woman of the century in my book because of her her sheer stamina and and and she's the best strategic mind in congress what would we have done without nancy pelosi in fighting trump you know from unfurling that silk banner in tiananmen square to squaring off with trump nancy knew dictators when she saw them and all of these things prepared her and she has that just sheer strength let's go to around the time of it of the midterms in 2006 and the successful success of the democratic party and her rise and everything washington is becoming extremely divided republicans were changing by nature they weren't yet the republicans of today but they were on their way did washington feel like it was becoming more and more partisan during that time and how did nancy pelosi react to it well you realize we had the gingrich revolution in 1994 and the tea party came later but she she was prepared to strike out to take a stand and to do what she deemed best for the party in keeping with her conscience and the direction of the caucus and so that was the beginning and the antics started so the big lie started long before and i think it was pretty obvious i think it was pretty obvious to her and she knew she had to fight she knew what she was dealing with with people who were unreasonable who weren't going to listen to facts and so you you go your own you carve out your own way for the democratic party and you have to try to be oblivious to this i mean when you have someone like trump saying grab him by the and then you have kevin mccarthy saying oh when i become speaker it'll be all i can do to keep from hitting nancy pelosi over the head with the gavel you know what that is that suggests violence against women and if there isn't anything to spur you on by disgusting creatures like that and someone who would who was the leader of the republican party in the house who would stand up and say that because he thinks it's cute and some of the guys in the caucus are going to in his caucus are going to laugh about it him hitting nancy with the gavel think about that and what that says to the young people nancy's trying to inspire and everybody says oh what you know he must have daughters he must have what do other young girls think about this but think also about what it tells young boys and men that it's okay it's okay to talk that way and so i think that she has a teflon shield on that these things bounce off of her when you think about it when you said the millions of dollars that were spent in negative ads when you think about what has come at her and the armor she has built up and the toughness over the years to let those things bounce off because she's moving on to the next thing and she's going to try to do something positive i can't say it enough how utterly strong she is and how she has the ability to move beyond and move to the next thing because there always is a next thing and in her job she has to put socks on the octopus every day no matter what the issue is she has to be involved that way so i think it's just over time you know going back to her dna but over time the the tough skin that develops because you know there you can't believe them you know you can't rely on them you know they're going to make up stuff you know that it's garbage and garbage out and you just become immune to that you have to to survive she's been brutally demonized brutally and i think that she has not gotten the credit she deserves even from some of our own democrats and the media for the phenomenal job that she has done over the years and the strength that she's brought to our leadership i most people would crumble but she's used to it and she's fairly immune to it but she made a comment i think she's got none i'm saying she's got grandkids you know i mean if okay let's say you've developed a tough high but what about your children and your grandchildren and family members to see grandma getting hammered well i i think that toughens her up i think that makes her even tougher but i know it must be hard it must be very very difficult for a family to see someone they love and care about and they know who's doing the best job in the world and to be minimized and ridiculed and treated in that way so there here's the question why would she stay and keep going i mean she's been in the political wilderness by 2018 when they went again give me just an insight into how do you think she handled those years of the wilderness what was nancy pelosi thinking and plotting and planning to do well uh one story comes to mind about when i left in 2002. and she called me one day i'd had breast cancer i didn't think i was going to survive it was a pretty bad situation and nancy had such compassion and humanity and helping me through a year of treatment and struggle and and i remember one day she called me after i'd left the office and she said well what does it feel and i said well i really do miss life inside the popcorn popper but i said it's it's it takes a lot to get used to and she said you know judy my biggest fear is that if i ever left that i would just lie on the sofa eat chocolate ice cream and watch jeopardy she said that's my biggest fear so there's only one speed there's on and there's off there's nothing in between for nancy pelosi so this the switch is on and she's high speed and until that switch is turned off i can't even imagine and i can't imagine what off would look like i also can't imagine her lying on the sofa eating ice cream and watching tv as trump gets in all the things that she confronted back in 86 87 maybe all of her life are just compacted it's like you know here's this the gender stuff with trump it must resonate with her she's seen guys like this before oh yeah i mean when you when you think of the uh entrenched paternalism and crude sexism that existed and to some extent large extent still does but that's what she came into a totally paternalistic society and with a lot of crudeness and she mastered that dave obi chairman of appropriations there almost 50 years and says she's the best speaker i've ever known chairman at the time of ways and means and when nancy was fighting human rights in china he signed one of her bills that she'd introduced on mfn and he said he said you've got a lot of balls and then you had martha so here she'd want him over she had him in the period where she wears the red coat and hershey collects her trunk and then wears that she goes from being basically a poster child of ridicule to a kind of iconic status how does she pull that off because she has style on top of every the guts and everything else she has style and that that's another thing that a lot of people resent about her that she that she has a great style about her she can be angry i think her best press conferences are when when she gets really angry on an issue and and she just rips into it and the other side of it is her humor i think people don't realize how humorous she can be and what a great sense of humor she possesses and i think you know that red coat that's just that's just nancy the red coat and the sunglasses that's her audrey hepburn side you know did she plan that coat those glasses or is this just pure luck i don't think she would have contrived it that i mean i know she does pick colors of things she wants to wear on certain occasions and maybe her jewelry is affected by an occasion i don't know but i i don't know about the coat but it was quite quite a flare and quite a statement and someone sent me an artist had done a rendering of nancy coming out of the white house with the coat and the glasses and everything and so it just be and the t-shirts and everything that started to sell with the red coat and people wanting to buy the red coat so it was um i don't know how rehearsed that might have been i can't say but uh it was really a statement so they win the democrats win they're surprising women lots of women come in uh and and nancy pelosi is about to try to do something nobody's really done which is you know most speakers go away after a loss but she's back good for her but at least five white men in the uh moderates in the caucus uh seth moulton tom ryan others they they don't want that to happen they want to stop her describe what you how you think she probably reacted to the idea that after this big victory after lots of new women and progressives in the party the men are after her they're not even kind of grateful exactly they never stop and she knows that the assault never stops and what she also knew is that they couldn't count votes they couldn't even count their own votes so for her that was just an exercise in what you know what did they accomplish getting 43 votes or whatever so i i think she has enough confidence and belief in herself she knows where she stands with her caucus she takes the pulse every day she is practiced at this she knows how to count votes she knows who stands where and i think she said recently with the infrastructure bill in an interview maybe it was a press conference but she always has a handful of votes that are in her back pocket a coat pocket red coat pocket and those are people who've confided in her and said this is how i'm going to vote you cannot tell anyone and nancy can be trusted that way she keeps those secret silent and never reveals that she always has that handful of votes that no one else knows about not jim clyburn not steny hoyer and not even her staff because when we were doing the leadership race for whip we did that the three years before i became ill and she always had her own little list that no one saw maybe it was just mental maybe it wasn't a physical list but no one saw that and she committed to those members that their information was safe and that she appreciated it so i think that um that she probably dismissed that as just a frivolous thing and some some members may have come to her and said well you know tim ryan said this seth moulton said this what do you think what do you think how do we deal with this and she would come up with a way to if there was a hole she'd figure out a way to plug it or a way to reassure someone but uh i think the big takeaway from that was they couldn't count votes let's talk about the squad here she is of this young group of new women who have instagram followings of five million so it's hard power in nancy's votes um versus influence which always the way she describes right aoc has talk a little bit about the meaning of the battle to nancy pelosi who herself was once the aoc of the crowd i know that the analogy doesn't exactly hold but was once a young progressive newbie and now she sees this new group of women who call themselves the squad talk a little bit about the troubles well uh i wasn't there and i can only speculate and draw from you know what i understand but nancy loves new talent and new energy and every every message she ever had in her first race for leadership was how to include members of the caucus and how to incorporate their ideas their expertise and to utilize them and showcase the talent that exists within the caucus so that is all something positive for her and back to the lessons that nancy used in her early years it was look listen learn before you decide to launch and you know i think members come to congress and they think they can just turn things around the next day and it does take time and you have to prove yourself and you have to get the confidence of the rest of your membership and i think that's what nancy worked at it was to illustrate that she had something to offer the whole caucus and yes she was against the war and she was liberal and in all of that sense but i don't think that she would do anything but celebrate these women i think all of these women have a lot of admiration for each other i think if you spoke with aoc about nancy yes i think that there's a lot of mutual respect and deep caring and support a real foundation of support among the women members i think they will always disagree on certain issues and that you can't i mean it's a big tent with the democratic party this is what we do it's called the democratic process people say oh my gosh infrastructure week lasted two years but this is what you do it's a process and nancy uses that process and figures out the steps and i think that a lot of a lot of the women are very successful in proving themselves and i think jayapal you know is is is a great leader for the progressives and then you have members like katie porter who just sits there in those hearings and asks the best questions in the whole world and i think it's a matter of of finding something and proving yourself rather than just spouting off to be spouting off it better have a solid foundation and your belief system better be grounded in something that's meaningful that you can convey to a larger body and be convincing and persuasive so i don't think nancy sees the squad in any way as enemies but as part of the family and part of the family you work with sometimes you agree sometimes you don't i think it's pretty basic i don't think it is what it's always made out to be in the public view i think that it's much more basic and that if you talk to nancy about it yes they get frustrated with each other i'm sure but in the end you're still family and you're still going to try to work things out and you still ultimately have very similar goals yes but they are very different in terms of how they see power they want it now they want it now and sometimes it it isn't that quick to come the six of them voted no on the easy infrastructure bill right yeah and i and i asked a friend uh on the hill i said do you think that there were any three of them who may have given their word to nancy saying look if you need us we're there but we know you're going to get some republican votes so let us take a walk those are the kinds of things that happen behind the scenes that we don't know i mean we look at it we say wow those six and and we got 13 republicans and wow we couldn't have done this without the republicans we don't really know if that's true only nancy and those members would know people will say oh you see a duck swimming on water it looks so beautiful so smooth you don't want to see what's going on underneath the water and and we don't know i mean we we see we see the surface but we really don't know what nancy is is doing underneath the surface yeah let's let's put trunk to bed here at least for the purposes of this story in the state of the union his last state of the union address he comes in they're in full-blown uh warfare now he gives uh she's sitting behind uh we're all watching closely what happens and of course she tears the stairs speech in half talk about that moment and then nancy pelosi you know sitting there simmering well i i think that she must have felt or would have felt totally disrespected totally ignored in her position and disrespected in her house and to have that in your face and to listen to him and see rush limbaugh lauded i i don't know how she sat there i don't know how i don't know how she did it that was nancy pelosi angry but look i'll show you remember anything like that ever before never we've never had a trump before we never had anyone like him it's it's interesting because you've used the word anger a few times and we've been thinking about eye or anger what does she have i mean why why would she be able to how could she be able to hold on to it and not blow you know not lower stack a couple of times you can see the steam coming out of her ears now but she had a smile on her face remember that she had a happy look and that smile or the the clapping at his last state of the union so i guess we're coming to the end one other sort of question about about her it's january 6 her office the office of the speaker of the house is defiled her staff is hiding under tables terrified for their lives we've all seen the video of people walking along saying nancy nancy they're calling to get her uh knows what would have happened if she would have been there who knows talk a little bit about speaking of anger and i guess speaking of other things too nancy pelosi after it's all over calls the vice president to say let's get the 25th amendment going calls general milly and basically takes him to task make sure nuclear warheads aren't about to be ordered by the president united states goes crazy and everything else talk about that nancy pelosi right there i think that points back to what i was saying before that she had to be shaken that was probably the worst thing she had ever ever experienced during her time in congress and in leadership to have a full-blown physical assault on the institution that you revere and respect and the staff and the people who work there and the members and to think that they were threatened and their lives were in danger nancy would have been so moved by all of that with i'm sure um a spectrum of emotions from anger to you know just i i can't even imagine but you see what she did she moved beyond that and she went to the next steps she didn't sit there and saying oh what are we going to do i'm the speaker and this has happened and and she wouldn't even take time to let herself feel that because what she had to do was take the next step because that's what leaders do and that's the kind of leader nancy pelosi is that she would not sit there and be just i mean she might have been stunned for a few minutes but believe me she was thinking about what what happens next what happens next and who do we need to notify i mean there was a total void of leadership in our country at that moment nancy pelosi was the one leading the country in that moment and that's what she did and she knew she had to be that person in charge and make those essential calls that a president and a vice president couldn't even make that she had to be the one dealing with this crisis and that's what she did and i know that i i can't even imagine what that must have felt like my last question what how would her life prepared her for that moment well it's who she is i don't know how much preparedness you need except that it's just so totally ingrained in her being and the person she is but the idea that she had no fear the idea that she has to wear this armor because of the attacks on her and the extremism that exists out there that she knows that she has to step up there's no choice did trump step up no did pence no was there anyone else who was going to take the reins and try to you know corral this horrible situation into something that we could try to make sense of going forward but in that immediate moment how what's next what could happen next what what could this man possibly be capable of as a next step so nancy was already thinking about the next steps and what you do as a leader because we had no leadership in our country at that moment let's see what we missed mike mike or jim jim you're right there what'd we miss uh the only thing i would ask is is is um did have you ever seen her out of control well uh she's notorious for being tough on staff and i have seen her use her anger you know in in that setting and i've seen her in small small groups in her office with members and and just getting livid about something and why would we do that why would we go there i have seen her you know with her anger in full steam what causes it what will light the fire if you do something wrong [Laughter] if something isn't right you know whether you're a member of congress and it's like don't you see if we take this path it's going to lead us to this spot and this spot and this spot and then we're going to be vulnerable for this to happen and something else to come in here don't you get it don't you understand why would you have such a a short view of what we're trying to do long term i can hear a conversation like that and i can hear a conversation with staff but in terms of staff it always you know she's a mother of five so keep that in mind but it always harkens back to when i was a child and my mother would get angry about something and guess what every time she got angry she was right she was right and when i look back at nancy and and anytime she blew up at staff or something she was right it was because there was a mistake there was something that we'd missed or something that was wrong and in the end she was right that's the only time i've ever jim i've ever seen her you know just it's usually about something that is wrong it's a mistake and it could have been avoided mike wiser yeah i had two things but but first i wanted to follow up on that because we don't see that side of nancy pelosi very much she's always has a strategy she's always put together she always knows what she's doing and i guess one of the one of the questions is is any of that related to being a woman coming up at the times when she did was was there a reason why you wouldn't show anger why you wouldn't show emotion um as much as other politicians might you know speaker boehner cried famously but nancy pelosi doesn't no and i i mean i when i told her i had breast cancer she cried the compassion and humility that came through in that moment of her sadness was incredible and she turned to me and she said judy we've run you into the ground i don't care what it takes you get well you stay alive and you take a year to be treated have surgery do whatever you need to do and you do not worry about your salary and so and i have seen nancy get teary you know over you know maybe coming back into the office and she's talked to someone and she's got news that someone is sick or someone has died and i've seen her get tyrion and um but that's that's the kind of person she is my last question during the obama administration she and obama have a different opinion on strategy whether to how much time to spend with republicans trying to pass bills do you think that was a disagreement of strategy were they do you think that they were being dismissive of her understanding of the politics were they listening to her as much as they should have i don't think so and i think they were dismissive and i think he was naive and i think she knew better than he did at that point how how you could or could not trust i mean she had been so conditioned by that time about the attacks the insults the that you could you could you couldn't trust them they couldn't keep their word and why are you going down this path when we know that they cannot be trusted and so i think i think it showed naivete on his part

Channel: FRONTLINE PBS | Official

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Id: 1aOaIY3hXJQ

Length: 60min 10sec (3610 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 22 2022