23mNancy Pelosi on Elon Musk, Donald Trump and hammer attack horror
Nancy Pelosi has been at the top of US politics for nearly 40 years – as the first, and only, woman in US history to serve as speaker of the House. She has played a central role in some of the most consequential American events of the last two decades, from the Iraq war to the US Capitol attack and Donald Trump’s impeachment. In her latest book, “The Art of Power: My Story as America’s First Woman Speaker of the House” Pelosi gives a behind-the-scenes look at her formidable political career.
Pelosi talks to Matt Frei about what she’s learned about politics and power after nearly four decades in Washington, why Donald Trump is “dangerous” and what’s next for America as the Presidential election approaches.
Nancy Pelosi: I’m not one to divulge conversations of a private nature. But it was, shall we say, optimistic, determination, and decision-oriented to get the job done – to win for the American people.
Matt Frei: Did she also say the words ‘thank you’ to you specifically?
Nancy Pelosi: No, why would she say such a thing? We have known each other for a very long time.
Matt Frei: I know, and you’re both from the San Francisco area. I wondered if she might have said ‘thank you’ to you because it is widely seen that you were instrumental in persuading President Biden to step aside.
Nancy Pelosi: I won’t go into that. Iin her public remarks, she expressed her gratitude for my leadership in passing the Affordable Care Act and saving the Affordable Care Act, with her commitment to even make it stronger. And that was the best thank you of all.
Matt Frei: But the reason why I asked the last question was that it was actually President Biden who namechecked you, Nancy Pelosi, in an interview that he gave at the weekend where he said, ‘if I hadn’t stepped aside’ and I’m paraphrasing here, ‘‘I would never have heard the end of it from Nancy Pelosi.’
Nancy Pelosi: No, I didn’t hear him say that. He said something like, ‘you all would be asking questions about that.’
Matt Frei: But your name did crop up though.
Nancy Pelosi: But in any event, I have loved him for decades. Our whole family, three generations of Pelosis. So that’s where I will leave that conversation.
Matt Frei: Okay, you’ve achieved a lot. You became the first female speaker of the House of Representatives, before we even had a female president in the United States. One could have said, Nancy Pelosi, why don’t you retire now? Take it easy, but you’re running again for office.
Nancy Pelosi: Well I had to run again.
Matt Frei: And if I may be so indiscreet, you’re two years older than President Biden.
Nancy Pelosi: I had to run again because I had to be on the ballot. In our system, it was necessary for me to run again, because my goal was to make sure that ‘what’s his name’ never stepped foot in the White House again.
Matt Frei: You called him ‘what’s his name.’ You don’t want to mention Trump’s name, do you? Just don’t like pronouncing that name.
Nancy Pelosi: No I don’t like it. I don’t like to say his name.
Matt Frei: You dislike him that much?
Nancy Pelosi: Oh, I pray for him. I pray that God will open his heart to receive some of the goodness that is necessary to meet the needs of the children. But I don’t talk that much about him. What else do you want to talk about?
Matt Frei: We’ll talk about a lot of things. I want to talk about political violence. One of the first chapters in your book, ‘Knock Knock Knock’, is about that night, that awful night, in October 2022, when you got a knock on the door. You were in Washington, your husband Paul was in San Francisco, and he was brutally attacked. It was a terrible experience for him and obviously for you and your family. First of all, how is he doing?
Nancy Pelosi: You’re nice to ask, thank you. He’s coming along. He’s making progress. More to come. But the trauma is still there for our children and our grandchildren. Because after it happened, as violent as it was, and coming into our own home and into our bedroom and all of that, it’s so awful that ‘what’s his name’ would make a joke of it. As did his children, as did a Republican governor and some Republican leadership. So that increased the trauma because it’s like, what is that? That cannot be what America is becoming. So the issue of political violence is something that must be… Politics is the non-violent way of disagreeing, and they’re making it a violent way. It has to stop.
Matt Frei: And, of course, what also must be so troubling for you is that the assailant was looking for you. He was looking for Nancy Pelosi.
Nancy Pelosi: You’re right, you know Matt, imagine the guilt that goes with that, to have this man go into our house. I keep thinking, how did he know to go to the backyard to pound into the windows? There’s some planning involved in it, that is suspicious.
Matt Frei: What must have been so haunting about that experience, amongst many other things, was it happened a year and a half after the attack on Capitol Hill. You were in Capitol Hill on that day, January the 6th, and you saw the mob approaching the… You write very, very pointedly about that in your book. And again, they were running through the corridors, the rioters, shouting your name, ‘Nancy, Nancy, Nancy, where’s Nancy? We want to find Nancy.’ Tell us about that day, about January 6th.
Nancy Pelosi: January 6th was a horrible day in American history. It was a day where the president of the United States incited an insurrection against the Congress of the United States, against the Constitution of the United States, and in the capital of the United States. In terms of that day, it was not just any day in the Capitol. It was the day, by law, we were required to certify the results of the Electoral College election. They wanted to come there to prevent that from happening. It did so with violence, with danger, with disgraceful behaviour, with defecation on the floor of the Congress.
Matt Frei: Defecation?
Nancy Pelosi: Defecation, yes. It was awful. And refusing, refusing, refusing, the then president, send the National Guard: disgraceful. Even though in a bipartisan way we were beseeching him to do so. Now he’s calling people who are arrested ‘hostages’ and he wants to free…or whatever it is…pardon them. He’s also said that he would terminate the Constitution of the United States. That should be a reason why somebody does not ever set foot in any Capitol or any White House. But the fact is, our oath of office is to support and defend the Constitution of the United States.
Matt Frei: Let me ask you this. President Biden has been very clear just recently, saying he is worried that if Trump were to lose this election, there would not be a peaceful transition of power. That Kamala Harris would not be moving into the White House without trouble on the streets or trouble from Trump. Do you share that fear?
Nancy Pelosi: I think they’ve shown what they are capable of. We would never have suspected that before. We would never have suspected they would come to the Capitol looking for the vice president with a noose. The vice president of their own party with a noose, because he was honouring his responsibility. Or to come for the speaker to put a bullet in her head using very foul language. Our founders may have suspected that there could be a rogue president and so they wrote impeachment into the Constitution. They didn’t foresee that it would be a rogue president and a rogue Senate and a rogue Supreme Court, unfortunately. So we have to deal with that. And the way to deal with it, is to win the election and to win significantly.
Matt Frei: Another thing they couldn’t foresee, that none of us could foresee until recently, was the power of social media and of someone like Elon Musk. Elon Musk has been very controversial in this country in recent weeks because he has meddled with British politics. He’s about to interview Donald Trump. Who in your book is a greater threat to American democracy, Elon Musk or Donald Trump?
Nancy Pelosi: Donald Trump, without any question. I mean, Elon Musk… strange. Donald Trump…very, very, very dangerous, very dangerous. I think if there’s one thing that we must do better, it is to make sure that the American people understand what is at stake.
Matt Frei: I want to end with a question about you, because you are the author of this book, Nancy Pelosi, Madam Speaker. After January the 6th, and on that day, your daughter Alexandra, who is a documentary filmmaker herself, was there with her son witnessing what you were witnessing. Then after the attack on your husband, she said to you, ‘you’ve got to quit everything, mum. You’ve got to get out of politics, get out of Congress, stop this, to protect yourself and your family.’ And you’ve carried on despite that. Is that the cost of power that you’re prepared to pay, to carry on?
Nancy Pelosi: I’m very solution-oriented. What she was saying, actually, in the fuller context, was that when she was 16 years old, I asked for her permission for me to run for Congress, because I went on to say that mommy would be gone three nights a week – when Congress was in session. She responded by saying, mother, not mommy, ‘get a life’. What teenage girl wouldn’t want her mother out of the house three nights a week? So she was hearkening back to that, saying, ‘if I had known that this would end up with a hammer on dad’s head, I would never have agreed to your going forward.’ And if I had known it would end up with that action, then I would never have proceeded. But we’ve got to get the job done. And the best way to do that is to make sure we have a political solution. We make sure that we win this election.
The American Fourcast was produced by Silvia Maresca, Calum Fraser, Shaheen Sattar, Rob Thomson.
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