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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again everyone. Back with us is a frequent guest on this show USA Today Washington bureau chief Susan Page. Usually, she comes on to explain what's happening in national politics. She'll do some of that today but stop the presses. Susan also has a major new biography of the Speaker of the House. It's called Madam Speaker: Nancy Pelosi and the Lessons of Power. Hi, Susan. Congratulations on the book which is getting great reviews. Welcome back as always to WNYC.

Susan Page: Hey, Brian. Thank you. It's always so good to be with you.

Brian Lehrer: Let's talk about the book first. We'll get into some news of the day later. I saw one review that said something like I'm doing this for memory and I'm paraphrasing. It was something like "Your book is the kind of big historical figure biography that's usually written about men." I'm curious if you thought of it that way explicitly when you were writing it.

Susan Page: Well, one reason I was drawn to the subject was I thought that Nancy Pelosi had done things that if she were a man, she would have gotten more credit for. In a way the fact that she has been a groundbreaker in terms of gender has meant that I think some people don't see what a groundbreaker she has been in terms of actually enacting policy, leading politics as having done consequential things. She's in the history books, of course, as the first woman speaker. She should be in the history books as well for some of the things she's done in that role.

Brian Lehrer: Well, go ahead. You set that up, pick something.

Susan Page: All right. Let me pick two. One, 2008 financial meltdown. It was Nancy Pelosi who bailed out a Republican President George W. Bush and the nation's economy by pushing through a really unpopular piece of legislation. She blamed that vote for the TARP bill, the Toxic Assets Relief Program for the defeat of Democrats in the midterm elections in 2010. A second example, the Affordable Care Act would not have been passed without Nancy Pelosi who insisted on going big when some in the White House wanted to go small and pushed it through in an example of political muscle like we have rarely seen in our country.

Brian Lehrer: On the Affordable Care Act, I noticed that the LA Times review of your book liked your description of Pelosi trying to recruit Indiana Senator Joe Donnelly, not an obvious supporter of anybody coming from Indiana of a big healthcare bill. Would you tell that story and what it's emblematic of?

Susan Page: Well, so he was one of the Democrats who voted against the bill the first time around. They really needed his vote when it came around the time when they were using reconciliation, that obscure procedure with which were also familiar these days. Barack Obama called him to the White House and said, "You should do this for me. Don't be the vote that keeps me from getting this passed." That did not persuade Congressman Donnelly to vote for the bill. Nancy Pelosi did something different, more subtle, more sophisticated. She called the Reverend Theodore Hesburgh, who was, of course, the famous president of Notre Dame, where Joe Donnelly had attended school.

Father Hesburgh was like a father to him. Father Hesburgh called him and said, "I'm not going to tell you how to vote. I know that you're going to do the right thing." That persuaded Joe Donnelly to vote for this bill. At that point, every single vote was crucial and it was not helpful for him and his political future.

Brian Lehrer: It's so interesting. It's an example of what I think you call in the book, Knowing People's Districts Better Than They Do. Most people probably don't know that Pelosi's father was mayor of Baltimore. Who was he and what kind of political Household did Nancy Pelosi grow up in?

Susan Page: Brian, it's so interesting. As we speak, Speaker Pelosi is having her weekly news conference and I was watching the beginning of it before I was on the air here. She brought a picture of her father to that weekly news conference, a picture of her father.

Brian Lehrer: Today?

Susan Page: Today. She's still speaking. Her news conference is still going on and she's got a picture of her dad up there. Before he was the three-term mayor of Baltimore, he was the five-term Congressman from Baltimore. He was chair of the DC Appropriations Subcommittee, which meant he was in effect the mayor of DC. The picture that she showed is one that hangs in her office. It shows him with Eleanor Roosevelt, the first time a first lady ever testified before Congress at his invitation about the situation in the District of Columbia. She brought this to the news conference.

She was making the point that the issue of DC statehood is something she said is in her DNA. Well, politics is in her DNA because she is very much the daughter of Tommy, the elder D'Alesandro, who was a larger-than-life figure in an era when big-city mayors were kingmakers.

Brian Lehrer: She's from Baltimore, but Pelosi's district is in San Francisco. How did she wind up there?

Susan Page: Well, she married Paul Pelosi. They were college sweethearts here in DC. He went to Georgetown University. She went to Trinity College. They moved to New York first, where he had a job. She was then having five children in six years, which is a pretty rapid pace. He was from a prominent San Francisco family. They moved back there when he had a job offer that involved business with something new, a new business going on in what became known Silicon Valley. She moved to San Francisco. In a way, San Francisco had some characteristics that were like Baltimore in that Port City really active politics as a contact sport in the city, democratic politics in particular. It was a place she felt pretty at home.

Brian Lehrer: She was getting into the family business, but was there an issue, or were there a couple of issues that really motivated her to get into politics herself to try to bring change on?

Susan Page: She never stopped being active as a political volunteer, even in New York when she had all those little kids. In San Francisco, she eventually became close to Jerry Brown. She became chairman of the California Democratic Party. The way she got into elective politics as a candidate herself was a way that is familiar I think to a lot of women of her generation. She only ran for office after another woman encouraged her to do so. That woman was Sala Burton, who was the widow of the legendary head of the Burton political machine in California.

She had succeeded her husband in Congress, she was dying of cancer. She knew Nancy Pelosi. Well, she called her in and urged her to run for her seat when it was vacant, and offered her endorsement. Pelosi told me that if Sala Burton had not encouraged her to run, she never would have gotten into elective politics herself.

Brian Lehrer: I want to play a clip from one of the most famous things I think that she did while Trump was president. Obviously, she was the Speaker of the House, Donald Trump was president. They were big foils for each other. In one of the years that President Trump gave a State of the Union address and remember listeners how the staging is for the State of the Union address. The Speaker of the House sits behind the president. That's regardless of party. Therefore Nancy Pelosi was on camera a lot of the time that Donald Trump was giving his State of the Union addresses. At the end of it, one year, she tore up the physical copy of the script that she had and later she explained it like this.

Nancy Pelosi: I got passed like about a third of it and then I thought, "This is terrible." I kept me [unintelligible 00:08:24] in a couple of pages thinking, you got to remember what's on this page on this page. Then I realized that almost every page had something in it that was objectionable. It wasn't a planned thing, but it was-- one of my disappointments is the fact that with all that we have done legislatively, whether it's equal pay for equal work, raising the minimum wage, gun violence protection issues that relate to our children, the list goes on climate now. We have very little press on it. It seems that if you want to get press, you have to get attention. I thought, "Well, let's get attention on the fact that what he said here today was not true."

Brian Lehrer: Speaker Pelosi. As we continue with Susan Page, Washington bureau chief for USA Today, who's got a brand new book called Madam Speaker: Nancy Pelosi and the Lessons of Power. Does that incident represent a larger political calculation that leaders frequently have to make or that Pelosi has during her career about when to alienate some people who might think you were being too hostile like tearing up the State of the Union address and too partisan and when that gets you something politically or just alienates people?

Susan Page: I don't take Speaker Pelosi's explanation of that totally at face value. I think she lost her temper. She got under Donald Trump's skin over and over again. That was the only occasion I've seen that Donald Trump got under her skin in public and she did something that she's never expressed regret about, at least not to me and I talked to her at length about this episode, but I don't think that it was as much of a calculation as she was steaming by the end of that speech. Part of it was that he had said a series of things that she thought weren’t true. Part of it was that he had given a great presidential honor to Rush Limbaugh, who is of course, so toxic, was such a toxic figure for Democrats.

The other thing was, she told me that it got started because she couldn't find a pen. She's sitting up there, you don't take a purse up with you when you're sitting behind the president of the State of the Union. She said that before she started to tear that little edges of the speech, she wanted just to make a mark with a pen, but she couldn't find one. There's a little drawer up there, she opened the door, it was empty. That got her started on the tearing the edge. By the end of it, she was pretty mad. Her caucus was enraged. States of the Union are supposed to be big traditional affairs, they become pretty partisan, you remember that you lie shout that Barack Obama got it one. This was an example of her just losing her temper. It’s-

Brian Lehrer: Which is a good thing for being genuine, after all, she's been through, she could be jaded for being able to be moved that much to that much anger by that many lies.

Susan Page: Yes, that's one way to see it. Another way to see it is, it was just an extraordinary show of disrespect and a sign of where our politics are these days.

Brian Lehrer: There's Pelosi’s relationship with the right exemplified by that. There's also Pelosi’s relationship with the left in your book, like with the Squad, the young progressive members of Congress, led by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Here's a clip of Pelosi with Lesley Stahl on CBS on 60 minutes that pertains to that.

Lesley Stahl: Why haven't you brought young people into the leadership?

Nancy Pelosi: Because we have, you perhaps don't know.

Lesley Stahl: Why does AOC complain that you have not been grooming younger people for leadership?

Nancy Pelosi: I don't know. You'll have to ask her. Because we are.

Lesley Stahl: That was sharp dismissing her.

Nancy Pelosi: I'm not dismissing her. I respect her. I think she's very effective as our many other members in our caucus that the press doesn't pay attention to, but they are there and they are building support for what comes next.

Brian Lehrer: Susan put that clip in context.

Susan Page: Well, I think that the speaker and AOC have a complicated relationship, one that has had some ups and downs. In an interview that I did with Speaker Pelosi, that happened to fall on the day of a big blow-up in the Democratic Caucus after the four members of the Squad defected on an immigration bill. Then AOCs, then Chief of Staff posted some really politically incendiary tweets that criticized Pelosi and criticized other Democrats in the House.

I happened to be seen sitting down with her just after that meeting took place. It was again an example where she was pretty irate. She's so disciplined that it's rare that you see her not in her most disciplined mode. In this interview, she compared AOC and the Squad to children who want to take pulley pictures, want to show how pious and pure they are. Meanwhile, she said in another part of the room, are the people who are here to get things done.

Brian Lehrer: Oh, I saw that quote from your book. Some people come here, as former House Appropriations Chair David Obey would have said, so she's quoting a former Congressman, "Some people come here to pose for holy pictures. See how perfect I am and pure. There's a group that's going to go pose for holy pictures. Now, let's legislate over here. They'll understand when they have something they want to pass. If you have something that you want to pass, you're better off not having your chief of staff send out a tweet in the manner in which that was sent out, totally inappropriate." That phrase posing for holy pictures.

Susan Page: That is not a compliment. Even for a devout Catholic like Nancy Pelosi, that is not praise.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, your questions about Nancy Pelosi, welcome here for Susan Page, Washington bureau chief for USA Today, who's got this new biography called Madam Speaker: Nancy Pelosi and the Lessons of Power. 646-435-7280, 646-435-7280. We'll also get into some news of the day as we go in a little while. Susan, how do you write a big political biography like this? For example, I see you had good access to Pelosi herself for multiple interviews. Did she know you're writing a book and not just current news stories? How does that affect how you interview her?

Susan Page: Well, I had no deal with her, when I launched the book when I signed a contract and started the book. I'd interviewed her, of course, over the years in Washington just as a reporter. I thought she was likely to give me some access, but I didn't know how much. She ended up giving me 10 interviews, which is a lot for someone who is the Speaker of the House. That's a lot of time. They were all for the book. She understood they were for the book, they were not for USA Today. I cover Washington, but really more national politics and the White House sides of things. USA Today had other reporters covering the Hill, covering the leadership, doing the daily coverage of the Speaker of the House.

Brian Lehrer: How big a circle of other people did you interview for the book?

Susan Page: I interviewed more than 150 other people. I interviewed everybody who I could think of who was willing to talk to me about Nancy Pelosi. I interviewed her husband, Paul Pelosi, who very rarely agrees to interviews. I was grateful for him to agree to it. There were two older people I wanted to interview, went and interviewed them very early because of the age. One was John Burton, who is the cantankerous, legendary profane political figure in San Francisco, who had been important in Pelosi’s first campaign.

The other was Harry Reid, the former Senate Majority Leader, who had worked with Pelosi, he was suffering from pancreatic cancer. I went and saw him in Las Vegas. I'm glad to report that both these guys are still around and kicking. The hurry-up quality that I felt in those first interviews turned out not to be necessary.

Brian Lehrer: Are there some things having interviewed so many people that both Pelosi lovers and Pelosi haters tend to say about her?

Susan Page: Ruthless, because she is ruthless. She is very comfortable with power. She grew up in a family that had power. It's rare to find women who are so comfortable with power, rare to find people of either gender or any gender, who are as comfortable with power, as Nancy Pelosi is. Her allies like her ruthlessness because it gets things done. Of course, her critics would have a different view of it.

Brian Lehrer: We will continue in a minute with Susan Page on Nancy Pelosi and news of the day and your calls 646-435-7280, 646-435-7280.

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer, WNYC with Susan Page, Washington bureau chief for USA Today, and now the author of Madam Speaker: Nancy Pelosi and the Lessons of Power. TK in the Bronx, you're on WNYC with Susan Page. Hi, TK.

TK: Good morning, Brian. You always have a great show, man. I don't know how you do it. It's always great. I grew up in the Bronx, I'm here now, but I spent all my summers in San Francisco. I'm going to tell you, it's changed so much over the decades. I just want to know how long has Nancy Pelosi been running the politics there. Because it's horrible. I grew up with Blacks, Mexicans, Asians, it was like a little New York, San Francisco. My grandmother had a two-bedroom apartment. It was economical, it was beautiful. That same apartment is like $5,000 a month right now, with a view of the bridge. We weren't walking distance, but we had a view of it and now everybody's gone. Everything's gone. The people that have left either homeless or living in little shantytowns, or they had to leave. I think Nancy Pelosi is a great lady, she's done some great work as a Speaker, but what's going on in San Francisco, she needs a spanking for that. If she has anything to do with any of that, she needs a spanking.

Brian Lehrer: TK, thank you, and keep calling us. Susan, how much can we hold any member of Congress responsible for gentrification in their district which is often seen as a local issue?

Susan Page: I don't think she's totally responsible, but that doesn't mean she has no responsibility. I agree with TK. San Fransisco is such a beautiful, wonderful city in so many ways, but the homelessness, in particular, is something you just can't miss when you're there. She's been the Congresswoman for San Fransisco since 1987 when she won a special election there, but there have been also a series of mayors in San Francisco and, of course, a series of governors. In California, there's gentrification. I don't have to tell New Yorkers what a complicated issue that is. I don't think she avoids all responsibility for that, but it's probably not fair to say she is primarily responsible for that trend.

Brian Lehrer: Another critical call. Paige in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Paige.

Paige: Hi, Brian. Thanks for taking my call. I'm just wondering how two days ago Nancy Pelosi thanked George Floyd for being murdered in a disgustingly tone-deaf statement saying he sacrificed his life for justice. I can't imagine a more disgusting take to have on George Floyd's death. I'm wondering why we're platforming Nancy Pelosi and celebrating her achievements at this time when she said a really horrible and out-of-touch thing that is disgusting. I just was wondering what the choice was to celebrate Nancy Pelosi two days after that and not talk about that?

Brian Lehrer: I'll say as a matter of scheduling that we had this segment planned many weeks in advance because we knew when the book was coming out. The book is out now, today or yesterday. This was pre-scheduled. Susan, talk about that remark.

Susan Page: Paige called it tone-deaf. That is a kind description of it. Obviously inappropriate, the wrong thing to say. She made some effort to walk it back, to revise and extend her remarks I guess you'd say in congressional terms with a tweet that took a different tone saying he should not have died and with a more appropriate comment. The fact is, Nancy Pelosi is not great at the public speaking part of political leadership, and she never has been. She is not an eloquent speaker. She can get tangled up in her words.

You may remember during the Affordable Care Act debate, she said that we have to pass a law to learn what's in it. Republicans have played that over and over and over again. Certainly, she is not an eloquent person. She misspoke in this case. What she does do though as a political leader is in the room making the deal, standing up to the president, Democratic presidents, and Republican ones. That is what she does, as well as anyone in American politics today.

Brian Lehrer: I'm just going to go to another call. How about Monte in Manhattan. You're on WNYC. Hi, Monte.

Monte: Hi, Brian. Hi, Susan. My question is, when Pelosi wanted to become Speaker, lots of progressives opposed her, especially AOC, and she made a deal with them she will be Speaker for only two terms and step down. Now that's coming very soon. Did she pick any heir apparent? Did she pick any replacement? What's her future?

Susan Page: Monte, thanks for your call. That's exactly right. In 2018, when she faced a battle to be re-elected Speaker when Democrats regained the House, she made an offer that she would serve only two more terms, only four more years. It was never codified. It's not like somebody could enforce it. She indicated this year that she remembered her comments and she intended to abide by them. That makes this her valedictory term. This means this is her last term as Speaker of the House, and we assume that would mean her last term in Congress.

There are any number of House Democrats who would like to succeed her. I would think the leading candidate is someone who's very close to home for you all, and that is Hakeem Jeffries, the congressman from Brooklyn. He's in the leadership now. He is close to Pelosi. He would be a groundbreaker in his own way. If he became the House Democratic leader, he would be the first person of color to hold that role.

Brian Lehrer: Your last book-- Monte, go ahead.

Monte: Pelosi will retire or will still stay in the Congress?

Susan Page: She hasn't said, Monte, but I can't imagine she would stay in Congress. She indicated when she first came to Congress that she only wanted to stay for five terms, 10 years. She's gone way past that. She says she wants to spend time with her nine grandchildren. She's indicated that she may write her memoir. I hope that she does that. I actually have a personal theory. This is not based on actual information, but my personal theory is that it is possible that President Biden would appoint her as the ambassador to Italy or to the Vatican, to Italy, the land that her grandparents left not so very many years ago.

Brian Lehrer: How much would you say that Pelosi has been undervalued because she's a woman or underestimated because she's a woman, and how much that has played a role in her career or her approach to gaining and wielding power? People say things about women that they wouldn't say about men. People dismiss women in the way they wouldn't dismiss men. One of the callers even to this segment, critical of her, said she deserves a spanking. I know he was talking in political terms, but you wonder if a guy would say that about a man who he disagreed with on something politically. How does all that play into her approach? The subtitle of your book is Nancy Pelosi and the Lessons of Power. What's the lesson in that respect?

Susan Page: I think that sexism has definitely played a role in her career of what she's worthy. There's only one political race that Nancy Pelosi ever lost, and that was in 1984, '85 when she ran to be Chair of the Democratic National Committee in the aftermath of the debacle that was the Mondale campaign. We remember, of course, Walter Mondale who just passed away a few days ago. In that campaign, there was a lot of sexist talk about her. She was called an airhead. She was called a dilettante. She publicly blamed sexism for her defeat in that race, and she's never complained about it since, publicly. I think she decided that that wasn't helpful, that she would just plow ahead.

She applied the primary lesson that her father taught her. Here's how she articulates it, "Nobody is going to give you power. You have to seize it." That is how she has proceeded. That's the advice she has given other polls. There is one thing that I think sexism played a part in that does still annoy her, which is when she was elected Speaker of the House the first time in 2007, the first woman in that role, Time Magazine never put her on its cover. As soon as John Boehner succeeded her as Speaker, the next week, he was on the cover of Time magazine with a big headline that said, "Mr. Speaker."

Brian Lehrer: Dylan in Sweden, you're on WNYC. Hello, Dylan.

Dylan: Hello. I'm actually standing by the American Embassy, and it's snowing, so I apologize. It's a lot of-- and windy.

Brian Lehrer: It's snowing?

Dylan: Yes, it is, actually, today. I'm trying to reframe this in a question, but it's more or less about the perspective of the right on Nancy. I remember a visual so strongly from the insurrection of Nancy sitting on a windshield of a truck and you see the cops and everyone standing by there for minutes and minutes and minutes and minutes. It actually came up a couple of weeks ago how you spoke about Biden being [unintelligible 00:29:05] and Hillary Clinton being more like a hawkish person, and also with Kamala Harris being a pitbull. I'm just wondering if you portray this in the book, and also, how it perhaps will be talked about and remembered and if it is more something about the right, about how they find women in our time today. Is that something you've seen also among politicians?

Brian Lehrer: Dylan, thank you. Susan.

Susan Page: Dylan, thank you, and I hope you're staying warm. It's hard to imagine sitting there in the snow in Sweden. That's remarkable. I would love to tell you briefly a story. I actually interviewed Nancy Pelosi last week. This wasn't for the book, obviously, but for USA Today, and it was the first time I'd had a chance to ask her about the events of January 6th. She told me that she was up there presiding over the House when security, her security guard, one of them came up and said, you have to leave, there's a problem. She didn't think it was some big deal, she didn't take it too seriously so much so that she left her phone up there because she thought she would step away and then immediately becoming back.

Then they took her to a secure location and with all of us watched on TV, the horrific scenes of the Capitol of the United States being stormed by a mob. We saw them chanting her name and we saw the pictures afterwards of the guy who put his boot up on her desk and left an obscene note for her on her desk. I asked her last week, if they caught you, would they have killed you? She said, "Yes, that was what they were setting out to do." Then she said, "They would have had a battle on their hands because I'm a street fighter." Then she lifts up her foot. We're sitting in the Speaker's Suite. She lifts up her foot points to her four-inch stilettos and says, "Besides, I could have used these as weapons."

Brian Lehrer: It is Pelosi who they set out to kill. It's Gretchen Whitmer who they set out to kidnap, not Cuomo, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Roslyn in Bedsty you are WNYC. Hi, Roslyn

Roslyn: Roslyn.

Brian Lehrer: I'm sorry. Hi.

Roslyn: No, no problem. Listen, in terms of Madame Pelosi, some time ago she's had some challenges and conflicts with African-American women that are high profile in the party and hard workers. They were more or less were a little upset with her in terms of her selections. I just hope, and I want to know, I just want to hope what is her stance on promoting African-American women to take that next book position after she leaves?

Then my final question is that, in your book, do you talk about her money and donations and her, they accused her of taking corporate monies and supporting their positions, which might not go along with the democratic position.

Brian Lehrer: Roslyn, thank you so much. I think there's something in the news this week about her purchase of Microsoft stock, is that a thing?

Susan Page: I had seen that her, I don't know much about that. I had seen a conservative critic raise that issue, but it's not something I know well enough about to talk about.

Brian Lehrer: But on her relationship with African-American women members.

Susan Page: Well, her relationship with African-American women members is generally good. Although one of the complaints that AOC made at the point they were in a public dispute was AOC suggested she was singling out for criticism members of the squad who of course are women of color.

She is close to the congressional black caucus, she has promoted some African-American women within the House, I'm thinking, particularly, for example, Val Demings, the Congresswoman from Florida who she put on the impeachment, made one of the impeachment managers that was a very high profile position and it was, I think one reason Val Demings ended up on Joe Biden's shortlist for vice president.

It is possible that she will be succeeded by an African-American woman as the leader of House Democrats. One name that is often talked about is Karen Bass the Congresswoman from California who was formerly the speaker of the California assembly. She has some experience there so it's not impossible that she'll be succeeded by a woman of color.

Brian Lehrer: We have just one minute left, let me ask you just one overarching question on news of the day. There are so many things Pelosi could pass in a Democratic House, but that go to die in the 50/50 Senate, is that affecting how she legislates? She could do lots of posing for purity pictures, as you said she could call it herself, but to no avail. Whether it's on climate bills or the George Floyd justice and policing act or HR one or economic things, a million other things.

Susan Page: Of course that's been the history for the past two years, passing things in the House, they don't pass in the Senate. She's very focused on getting this infrastructure bill through and after that, the bill that would follow that we'll have more social programs in it, but she is, I think pretty realistic about the prospects for getting a lot of different things done in a 50/50 Senate

Brian Lehrer: Susan Page, Washington Bureau Chief for USA Today, her new book is called Madam speaker, Nancy Pelosi and the Lessons of Power. Susan has some virtual book events coming up. If you want to hear more. One is from Cornell University at 7:00 PM on Thursday, May 6th events.cornell.edu to sign up for that one and Monday, May 10th at 8:30 PM, a virtual book event with the Bay Area Bookstore book passage, bookpassage.com/event. Susan always a pleasure. Thank you so much, so interesting. Congratulations on the book.

Susan Page: Brian, it's a privilege to be with you. Thank you.

 

 

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