The Daily - Nancy Pelosi’s Last Fight

Episode Date: November 29, 2018

Many newly elected Democrats in the House have voted to make Representative Nancy Pelosi the next speaker. But that doesn’t necessarily mean she has their support. Guests: Sheryl Gay Stolberg, who covers Congress for The New York Times, and Representative-elect Rashida Tlaib, Democrat of Michigan. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily.

Hey, it's Michael. Daily listeners often ask how they can support this show. The answer is through a subscription to The Times, the journalistic engine that powers The Daily. For those of you who already subscribe, thank you. For Daily listeners who don't yet subscribe, The Times is now offering 50% off your first year, plus your first month free. It's a good deal. To learn more, visit nytimes.com slash thedailyoffer. That's nytimes.com slash thedailyoffer. And thank you. From the New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Today, many of the newly elected Democrats in the House have voted to make Nancy Pelosi their next speaker. Why that doesn't necessarily mean she has their support.

It's Thursday, November 29th. Cheryl, what was the scene on Capitol Hill on Wednesday? It was like a big, messy, boisterous family meeting with all of these lawmakers, new and old, converging on an auditorium in the visitor center here to pick their leaders for the coming year. There's a Democratic leadership vote this morning, I believe at 10 a.m. And there was an energy in the air and a sense of buzz and excitement.

Is there any way in your mind that Nancy Pelosi does not become the next Speaker of the House? But also trepidation on the part of many. Nancy Pelosi intends to be Speaker of the House, but on Friday those intentions hit another speed bump when nine Democrats said they can't support her at this time because there are a lot of newcomers. Okay, Nancy Pelosi is going to need to figure out what to do now. The issue is after 16 years of the same leadership, we need a new direction. And that's what people voted for this November.

I think that's what people are looking for in the new Congress. And they're already starting to break down into factions. We reached Sheryl Gay Stolberg inside the Capitol building on Wednesday afternoon. There's a lot of division within the Democratic caucus right now. And what are those factions? How are they breaking down? So you have several of them. First, you have these new progressives, these young liberals. They have been elected in blue districts.

They're in safe seats. They're very progressive. You might say they're from the Bernie Sanders wing of the party. And they really are pushing for change. They want Medicare for all. They're talking about a Green New Deal that would be an infrastructure bill that would create tons and tons of clean energy jobs. They're talking about not only getting money out of politics, but getting money out of the House committee system. So they're asking, for instance, that members of a select committee on climate change take no money from industry. And those

are big things. That would be a big change. And what about the other factions? Well, then there are the red to blue people. These are folks who either flipped seats, Republican to Democrat, or they're kind of centrists who won in swing districts or even in districts that President Trump carried. So their agenda is more moderate. Some of them are pushing very hard to change the rules by which the House operates to allow for bipartisan bills to get brought to the floor and voted on. And that's getting a lot of pushback from the progressives who say, hey, we just won power. We just won a big election. Why are we, as one said to me, why do we want to give the keys to the car back to the people who locked us in the trunk for the last eight years?

And lastly, there's what I would call the old guard, the mainstream Democrats, the folks who have risen up the seniority system to committee chairmanships. They don't want to cede their power to these brash young newcomers, many of them women who are in Nancy Pelosi's inner circle. And then, of course, there's Nancy Pelosi herself. She's the highest-ranking woman in Washington. She was Speaker of the House the last time Democrats were in control, from 2007 to 2011.

She's been the minority leader ever since, and she really runs her caucus with an iron fist. She's not to be tangled with, and she wants to become Speaker again. And should she become Speaker again, she is going to have to contend with all these three factions. And that really was the whole question hanging over the election on Wednesday.

How far will these young, energetic, idealistic liberals be able to push their leadership and whether or not their leaders are able to manage this raucous and unruly caucus, which is in in effect, a group of people with competing interests. Hello? Hey, it's Rashida, Michael. Hey, how are you, Congresswoman-elect? Good, good. How are you? So, Cheryl, I spoke with Congresswoman-elect Rashida Tlaib on Wednesday.

You are kind of in the middle of it all right now, are you? Yeah, we're on recess. We just went through the caucus chair election. She stepped out of these House Democratic leadership elections on her cell phone and just spoke with me for a few minutes. And I wonder if you can tell me where she fits into all of this. She is definitely among the young progressives.

She's part of a group that I'm calling the Fab Four, and that is Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, Rashida Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York. Rashida is very, very progressive. She comes out of a community activism, a community organizer background. So what does that mean for somebody like Nancy Pelosi? Well, in order to secure votes from people like Rashida Tlaib, Nancy Pelosi is having to give a little. Pelosi needs her to win the speakership. But Tlaib has asks. She's got demands. And so Pelosi is going to have to give a little to get a little. And that's what led them to have a private meeting last week.

And I asked Congresswoman-elect Tlaib about that meeting and what was on her agenda. You met with Nancy Pelosi, right, and spoke to her about the changes you want to see. So what exactly did you ask for from Pelosi in order for her to reflect the change that voters seem to want? My exact words were, please honor that we are an increasingly different and diverse class. Honor it by actually putting this at a table

where critical decisions are being made about the people that do come out and support us. So how exactly did you want her to honor it? And how did you ask her to honor it? You know, I want to be on appropriations. That's not, you know, a secret. The most prestigious House committee there is, yeah. Yes. That's a gutsy request. I mean, she hasn't even really walked through the door yet. She's a congresswoman-elect. She's coming into a culture that is based on seniority. One thing about Congress is you've got to stick around a long time to get power. And the Appropriations Committee controls the purse strings. It controls

the money, how taxpayer dollars are spent. It's a committee that is ordinarily reserved for veteran lawmakers. You have to work your way up to get onto it. And to have a newbie, a freshman, come in and demand a seat on that committee is really kind of blowing up the old order of things in Congress. And she said that Pelosi's response during this meeting was that her first priority was to current House members, people already serving, not the newbies. And so it felt very much like her answer was essentially, no, I'm sorry, you do need to wait your turn. Well, that doesn't surprise me. Nancy Pelosi has got to look out on all of her flanks. And so she's not just going to give away a seat on the Appropriations Committee until she kind

of knows what she's dealing with, right? She's trying to get a lot of votes. She wants to know what everybody wants. And so she's going to play it close to the vest. And Rashida Tlaib says that she'll keep pushing. So this is a setback for Congresswoman-elect T the vest. And Rashida Tlaib says that she'll keep pushing. So this is a setback for Congresswoman-elect Tlaib. And for these freshman Democrats, they're not going to be given priority on these committees. Yes, I think they're

not happy about it. And that wasn't the only setback for these progressives. I have supported Barbara Lee and Hakeem once. And what does that signal? This is I have supported Barbara Lee and Hakeem once. And what does that signal? Oh, this is good that they have you call me right after. Barbara Lee, their favorite choice for chair of the House Democratic Caucus, lost to Hakeem Jeffries of New York. You know, Barbara Lee helped so many of us in that room and somebody that we all very much looked up to before we even got here.

She's an incredibly inspiring woman to myself and especially a lot of the new members. She was somebody that we looked to. She has not changed once since getting elected here. And that unwavering principle, that spirit that she embodies is something that I was hoping could be channeled through a leadership position. They were really lining up behind Barbara Lee. They were very hopeful that she would win. She would have been the first African-American woman to serve in House leadership had she been elected. And I should add, Michael, that it was a very close race, 123 to 113.

So only a 10 vote gap. And that also suggests the deep divisions that are emerging among Democrats. So despite all these divisions, Cheryl, these factions that are forming, it seemed pretty clear on Wednesday that most, if not all of the House Democrats are viewing Nancy Pelosi as a kind of inevitable speaker in waiting. And I wonder what you make of that. Well, I think it's testimony to the kind of iron fist that Nancy Pelosi has ruled with over this last more than a decade of leading the Democrats. Nobody has run against her, and there's a reason for that. Everybody's afraid to run against her. As Pelosi likes to say, you can't beat somebody with nobody.

And right now, the Democrats have nobody. But still, there's a question, because once this vote goes onto the House floor, which is where the speakership is decided, the whole House will vote. Pelosi will need 218 votes in order to win the speakership. And right now, she doesn't have that. And how many votes does she have now? Well, on Wednesday, when the House Democrats met behind closed doors, she got 203, 32 Democrats defected. And she's going to have to draw from both the progressives, who are uneasy with her because she's not left enough. And she's going to have to draw from

the centrists, the red to blue people who are uneasy with her because she's too left. And how much of a challenge will it be to win the moderates for Pelosi versus the progressives? Here's the thing. In some ways, it'll be harder for her to pick up the moderates because a lot of these moderates ran in districts where Nancy Pelosi is toxic. And they have made explicit pledges not to vote for her. They are part of the Never Nancy caucus, and they can't make their first vote a vote that breaks a campaign promise. Because they might not win their own seat if they did.

Exactly. Whereas for progressives, it may not be as much of a political risk to be associated with Nancy Pelosi. Right, because progressives, it may not be as much of a political risk to be associated with Nancy Pelosi. Right, because progressives can say, well, we're going to push her to the left. And let's face it, Nancy Pelosi is, although she has a reputation as a pragmatist, she is a progressive. She's probably the most progressive person in Democratic leadership right now. in Democratic leadership right now.

Cheryl, what is the likelihood that the progressive House freshmen, like Rashida Tlaib and those around her, end up voting for Pelosi in the end? I think there is a likelihood among those who didn't make a hard and fast promise not to. Now, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has said she will definitely vote for Pelosi. Ilhan Omar has said she will definitely vote for Pelosi. Ilhan Omar has said she will definitely vote for Pelosi.

So do you plan on voting for Pelosi despite not being given the assurance that you wanted? There is no opponent and no one's running against her. You know, I'm not voting for a Republican. Right. Which leaves you one option. That's right. So that raises the question of, will she have someone else to vote for by the time the vote takes place the first week in January on the House floor? And if she does, then we'll see. I have wondered, though, why you all didn't put up an alternative candidate for speaker.

Why not nominate someone else? You know, look, I wasn't here to recruit someone to be speaker. I was here to try to ensure that this class was, you know, at the table and that we continue having this dialogue and I continue to have this conversation with various people on the Syrian policy committee, all these little committees that I didn't even know about until I got here. But I wonder, if you end up voting for Pelosi, how is that going to feel to kind of vote for her by default if she does not feel all that receptive to what you're asking for? Are you worried that this is going to signal to supporters and to other members,

these other progressive Democrats who just got elected, that it will not really be all that possible to change Washington? No, it's possible. Everything is possible. We're going to outwork it. We're going to fight up against it. The fact of the matter is, you know, anybody can be speaker and leader in these different kinds of leadership positions.

My point is, we have to focus on what's happening at home and the district, and that's not going to change. It doesn't matter who's speaker here. If we assume Nancy Pelosi does become speaker, Cheryl, what do these divisions that you're describing, what do they signal about what it will be like for her to be speaker? Well, they signal that it will be very difficult for her to be speaker. And we kind of have a preview of this scenario if we look at the Republicans.

You might know that the republicans have what they call the freedom caucus it's a far right group and the freedom caucus has made trouble for a number of speakers john boehner basically quit his job because he wasn't able to manage them he was speaker and then nobody else could win that job. And then Paul Ryan took the speakership over and he, too, has really had to wrestle with this recalcitrant group of Republicans who are both on the inside and working with leadership, but also pressuring probably Speaker Nancy Pelosi and those around her, including Hakeem Jeffries, to change the culture, to not make you wait in line. I mean, we often talk about the House Freedom Caucus. How can you be pushing for change without fracturing the party? Are you thinking about that? Oh, yeah.

I mean, one thing that I know for certain is this caucus is extremely strong, especially the new members that have come in. What's different is there's a sense of courage to speak up, to not be silent. It's like we respect the institution, respect this process that's here, but doesn't mean we're not going to try to push up against it and agitate it in a way that allows residents back home to feel like, yes, this is the people's capital. This belongs to you. You know, this attempt that this is just not how it's done here, that just motivates me to show people, no, there's actually a way of doing it. Cheryl, in the end, what's your sense of how willing these progressives will be to actually compromise once it's time to govern? I think that's the $64,000 question.

I think we really don't know the answer to that. And that is, in my mind, the big overarching question of this coming Congress, which is, how much do we cooperate with Trump? How much do we resist him? How much do we investigate him? And I truly do not have a sense of how they will operate and whether or not they're going to be the no caucus or whether Pelosi or whoever leads them will be able to get them to bend a little bit. Pelosi told them behind closed doors, make your fight, make your case, but every fight is not the last fight. In other words, she was warning them, don't be intransigent.

Learn to bend a little bit. But of course, a lot of these new members feel like they weren't elected to bend. That's true. But they also will want to go home to their districts in 2020 with something to show for it. So, for instance,

if Democrats are able to pass a bill expanding Medicare to age 55 or age 50, will they not go for that because it's not Medicare for all? Or will they say, okay, we're willing to take half a loaf, and that's better than none? Cheryl, thank you very much. Thank you, Michael. We'll be right back.

Here's what else you need to know today. It is long past overdue that Congress remove U.S. forces from Yemen, as recent circumstances only confirm. Today we have the chance to remedy our course of action and to do what the Constitution and justice demand. On Wednesday, in a major rebuke of the Trump administration, the Senate voted to advance a resolution that would end U.S. military support for the war in Yemen. The situation in Yemen is dire.

The war has killed tens of thousands of innocent civilians, human beings, lest we forget, each one of them possessing immeasurable dignity and inherent worth. The resolution, sponsored by Democrats like Chris Murphy and Republicans like Mike Lee, would force the White House to withdraw military aid to its longtime ally, Saudi Arabia, which has bombarded Yemen since 2015. But what few Americans knew until recently is that the U.S. military has actually been

making the crisis worse by helping one side bomb these innocent civilians. The Times reports that the Trump administration is fiercely lobbying against the legislation, but is facing a backlash from senators over its failure to meaningfully punish Saudi Arabia for its role in the assassination of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.