The Interview - Nancy Pelosi Insists the Election Was Not a Rebuke of the Democrats

Episode Date: November 9, 2024

The former House Speaker reflects on Donald Trump’s victory, Kamala Harris’s candidacy and the future of the Democratic Party.

From The New York Times, this is The Interview. I'm Lulu Garcia Navarro. Perhaps no Democratic politician has been a greater antagonist of Donald Trump than Nancy Pelosi. As the leader of the House Democrats between 2007 and 2023, she participated in two Trump impeachments, memorably ripped up a copy of Trump's last State of the Union after he delivered it, and had an angry mob on January 6th

hunting for her inside the Capitol. And over the summer, it was Pelosi who was reportedly a key voice in convincing Biden to step down and give another Democrat a shot at beating Trump. Well, we all know now how that story ended. Vice President Kamala Harris suffered a stinging loss in Tuesday's election. Republicans regained control of the Senate. And even though the House has yet to be called for either party, the strength of the GOP's turnout is undeniable, as Republicans made inroads in heavily Democratic areas across the country.

Now, Trump is the president-elect, with a sweeping mandate and promises to undo many of Pelosi and the Democrats' legislative achievements. In her first extended interview since her party's defeat, Pelosi sat down with me at the Times offices in Washington, D.C. on Thursday evening. You know, we're trying to win the House right now. And she seemed to still be coming to terms with what had happened. Oh, my gosh. It's wild. Even as Democrats point fingers over who exactly is to blame, Pelosi seemed unwilling to concede that her party had been handed a crushing electoral rebuke, and she rejected criticism of the Democrats' direction. Here's my interview with Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi.

First of all, obviously a huge disappointment for you and the Democrats. How are you feeling? Well, on the presidential level, I feel sad for the American people. The policies that have been put forth by the president-to-be are some that are very, shall we say, if his first term is any indication, it's going to favor the very rich at the expense of working families. From a political standpoint, I'm very proud of Kamala Harris. I think she did an excellent job putting forth an agenda for the future. A person that is not only a to-do list, but a substantial to-do list for the American people. And she gave us hope with dignity and grace,

and I'm very proud of her candidacy. The people have spoken. Donald Trump has won, and now we will have a peaceful transfer of power in our country. You were at Harris's concession speech on Wednesday afternoon. Have you spoken to her since the election, and what was that conversation like, and what is she feeling at this moment? Yes, I've spoken to her. I've told her how proud we are of her, and thank her for, again, giving us hope with great dignity. Obviously, it takes time to absorb an election. It takes actually a while to understand how certain things have happened, but they did happen. And she accepts that, and she's my personal friend as well.

So for me, it was emotional to have to have the conversation in a way that was praiseworthy of her patriotic leadership, but sad for her personally. When you say emotional, what does that mean exactly? It's sad. We're talking about the presidency of the United States. We're talking about a person who is a good person, a person who cares about people. That's why she's in the civic arena. And then politically, very astute. You don't get to be the nominee of the party unless you know your politics. But we are on the verge. I understand

I know that it looked like a very red outcome yesterday, but we are on the verge of perhaps winning the House and making Hakeem Jeffries the Speaker of the House. There are votes to be counted in Arizona, Oregon, and California, and we're optimistic that we can win. You might win the House, but you definitely lost the presidency, you lost the Senate, and there is a good chance that the GOP remains in control in the House. There's already been a lot of parsing of what happened, and I know that there's going to be a lot to come. But what is your main takeaway from that terrible night for the Democrats? Well, it was not a good night for the Democrats, but as I say, I don't accept right now, and we

won't even know by the time this goes to print what the outcome is of the House races. But understand this, the big assault that was made, this big red map across America, we lost two of our incumbents, maybe three. We're still waiting to hear from one in Alaska. But that was a big save. I mean, what we call our frontline candidates, by and large, won in places where the Republicans were raging with their vote for the president and the Senate. The House members did very well. As I say, it's still a possibility that we can win, but just that it's a possibility tells you that the House ran against the tide. Already, we have started our organizing for the future.

We don't organize over what happened. We organize about what comes next. But I do think it's important to discuss a little bit about what you think could have been done differently. And a lot of the discussion has centered around how much President Biden's delay in deciding to leave the race following the debate in June hurt the VP's campaign. You know, you were very involved in encouraging him to leave. And there's reporting that you were concerned about him being the candidate well before the debate in June.

And polls were showing that the American people were very concerned about President Biden's age and his ability to lead into another term. Do you wish you'd gotten involved earlier than you did? No. Well, the president made his own decision to step aside and to endorse Kamala Harris, who made a patriotic, selfless decision for which we are all very grateful. I think that was one of the reasons we were able to save so many House seats. So I thank him for that. I had no reason to earlier say anything to the president. I would have wished that they had, in the first two years of the president's term, been more out there about what we had accomplished. The rescue package, money in

people's pockets, shots in their arms, people back to work, children safely back to school, the Biden child tax credit, all those things. There could have been more of a presentation of that. I was not asking the president to step aside. What I was asking the president to do is to have the campaign be more clear. Do you think he should have ever run for a second term? Well, that's a whole other conversation. The decisions that people make. I just say this. The president is the president. Candidates for president have their campaigns.

But we, as the rest of us, have to mobilize at the grassroots level to own the ground so they win. We have to have a message that has clarity and unity to it and not divisiveness just in terms of alienating people. And third, the money to get the job done. We did all that we needed to do to win the House as well as the White House. It's up to the candidate for president to make his or her own decision about timing, policy. Do you think the timing hobbled Kamala Harris? Because she had 100 days to get a campaign

off the ground, to mobilize people, to get her message across, to get her self-known. I mean, this was an incredibly truncated campaign. And many people think that maybe she was set up to fail just by the timeline alone. Oh, I don't think she was set up to fail. But let me just say this. We're only a couple of days since the election. There'll be many reviews of timing and the who, what, when, and why, and where as we go forward. And books will be written about it. The fact is she did a great job with the time constraint that she had. Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race. Kamala, I think, still would have won. But she may have been stronger, having taken her case to the public sooner.

You've talked about your interest in having had an open primary. Yeah. And as you know, it would have uncovered her weaknesses, her strengths. It would have tested her electability. That's what the primary system is intended to do. And it would have also perhaps resulted in a nominee that wasn't so tied to an unpopular president. Well, let me, it's interesting that you say those things.

I don't think that any review of the election should be predicated on weaknesses, but strengths of Kamala Harris. She gave people hope. She caused a great deal of excitement in all of this. It's about winning. You don't have to tell me that. But the fact is, we're set up for what comes next. Should there have been an open primary, though? Well, see, we thought that there would be. You know, the anticipation was that if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary. And as I say, Kamala may have, I think she would have done well in that and been stronger going forward. But we don't know that. That didn't happen.

We live with what happened. And because the president endorsed Kamala Harris immediately, that really made it almost impossible to have a primary at that time. If it had been much earlier, it would have been different. But we're not here to agonize. We're here, again, to organize on how we go forward. We're going to have fresh, new talent, perhaps Kamala among them, that's up to her, to go forward for the next election. But I think people need a little rest from elections right now.

We're still fighting to win the House, so we're not finished with our race. But it's a pretty exciting road ahead, and time goes by quite quickly. I'm sympathetic to the desire to move on from what is a very difficult moment. I do, though, feel like the Democratic electorate is looking for some reflection now and some understanding of how things ended up the way that they did. And, you know, when you look at what happened on Tuesday, you can see it in two ways. You can see that the country embraced Trump, or you can see that they rejected the Democratic Party more broadly and the Biden-Harris administration. How do you see it? Well, I don't see the Democratic Party more broadly. We lost two seats in the House, and we expect to pick up some more to offset that.

Right now, we're about even. So I don't think whatever you said, with all due respect, applies to the House Democrats. You know, though, that the way that the House runs is different than you run a national campaign, right? House races are run, you know, very locally. They message specifically for their district. But the brand of the Democratic Party overall seems to have been hurt this election cycle. Well, I think we lost the presidential election. And in many cases, our Democrats in the House ran ahead of the presidential ticket. So you're branding that we all got rejected. We didn't. We're still in

the fight right now, and it's going to be a close, a very close call. I don't see it as an outright rejection of the Democratic Party. Now, I do have a discomfort level with some Democrats right now are saying, oh, we abandoned the working class. No, we didn't. That's who we are. We are the kitchen table working class party of America. And that's why we're a close call in the House right now in a year where the map is a bright red across the board. I want to pick up on this working class issue because in a statement after the election, Senator Bernie Sanders said it should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party, which has abandoned working class people, would find that working class people have abandoned them. And Joe Manchin, who's now an independent but was an important moderate Democrat for years, also weighed in and had a similar diagnosis of what went wrong. And that was that the party doesn't stand for what it used to.

Well, I just completely disagree. And in fact, might notice that Kamala Harris ran ahead of Bernie Sanders in Vermont. So what does that tell you? I mean, it tells you that the fact is, is that what we do, what our purpose is in the Democratic Party, is for America's working families. So since you pursue it— Go ask Bernie Sanders. Bernie Sanders has not won. With all due respect, and I have a great deal of respect for him, for what he stands for,

but I don't respect him saying that the Democratic Party has abandoned the working class families. That's where we are. For example, for example, under President Biden, you see the rescue package, money in the pockets of people, shots in the arm, children in school safely, working people back to work. What did what's his name? What did Trump do when he was president? One bill that gave a tax cut to the richest people in America. In fact- Then why did voters who earned less than $100,000 go for Trump in such large numbers? God and gays, that's the way they say it. Guns, that's an issue. Gays, that's an issue. Now they're making the trans issue such an important issue

and their priorities. And in certain communities, what they call God, what we call a woman's right to choose. So you feel like it was the culture war issue? I think that's part of it. That's part of it. Nothing is it. It's part of it. Because it's really hard to understand how someone would vote for somebody like Trump who's been there for the wealthiest people. And again, I think the message that Bernie Sanders has put out is not the winning message for the American people. I love him. I think he's great. He's been a wonderful, shall we say, champion for his point of view. But his point of view is not correct when he says the Democrats

have abandoned the working families. Same thing with Manchin. I love Manchin. We have our Italian American Catholic connection, and we've worked together, but we have not abandoned working families. Most of the voters, though, said that they voted on the economy and inflation and immigration. These were the main issues. Those aren't cultural issues. Those are policy issues. Well, immigration is a cultural issue. There's immigration, a cultural issue. When the candidate for president is saying that these people coming in are murderers, rapists, thieves, and all the rest of that, he made that a cultural issue. The immigration issue. But there were millions of people that came in through the border at a time.

And he said they were criminals. And they weren't. They weren't. People felt quite strongly that they didn't want to see immigrants sleeping in police stations at airports. I don't think we were clear enough by saying fewer people came in under President Biden than came under Donald Trump. See, it's clarity of the message. And if that's what Bernie's talking about and that's what Joe Manchin's talking about, we weren't clear in our message as to what things are. Then I agree with that. And that was one of the concerns I expressed about saying we haven't put forth what was done.

It's our legacy, too. The rescue package, infrastructure bill, the CHIPS Act. But that didn't come across as well as it should have. So I think if you're talking about messaging, you're talking about communications, that's one thing. If you're talking about what we stand for versus what they stand for, the public's in for a big surprise. I didn't come here today to go through the list of grievances against Donald Trump. He's now the president. We wish our country well under the leadership of any president.

But we will disagree with him where we disagree and try to find common ground where that exists. We have that responsibility to the American people. But there's nothing in evidence of what he has done before when he says Obamacare sucks and he's going to get rid of that. They might even get rid of the CHIPS Act, which is a big jobs issue in our country. So we have, again, I'm not here to take him down. He won the election.

Congratulations. Good luck to him there. But hopefully we can find common ground. I do just want to make sure I'm understanding where you're at in this moment. You say the Democrats had a strong case for working class voters. And you say Kamala Harris was not especially weighed down by Biden's record. I didn't say that. Oh, okay.

So do you feel that Kamala Harris was weighed down by Biden's record or the perception of Biden's record? Well, I think that any vice president is, like it or not, tied to the record of the president. I think what Biden did was great. And being tied to his record is a great thing, but not the way the record was perceived. This is a record of job creation, 16 million jobs, as opposed to the record of her opponent who had the worst job creation record since Herbert Hoover. Yes, 16 million jobs, turning around inflation, all the things that we did to build the infrastructure of America, to reduce the cost of prescription drugs. Should she have taken a page out of your book, which is, I remember when you were Speaker of the House, you would always tell all of the people running, you can run against me, you can cuss me out, you can disavow me as long as you

win your race. Do you think she should have taken that tack with Biden? Let me just say this about the presidential. The presidential is a very special banner to carry. I never advise presidential candidates on what they should be doing. The presidency is a different initiative. So I have never, I'm not going to start today giving presidents advice. Many things can be said about you, but you are a brilliant tactician and a brilliant political mind. Well, I would rather say strategist than technician. Okay, strategist. So then as a strategy, should she not have tried to differentiate herself? She was tagged as being an extension of President Biden. Let me ask you this. Do you think that the Republican

candidate for president and his campaign would have let it? Oh, OK. No, they were going to be advertising against Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. So it's not a question of what she would do. It's a question of how they would present it anyway. That's why I leave it up to them. They have the intelligence from the campaigns. They have the talent out there to do the job. And I respect Kamala Harris as our candidate for president. What does it say to you that many parts of the electorate didn't find the argument put forward about democracy being so important, about what happened on January 6th being disqualifying, about many of the egregious examples of Trump's rhetoric being offensive? Ultimately, it didn't change their vote. I don't think it was a question of changing their vote. I think that's where they were. Now, the fact of January 6th, that was an assault on our Congress, assault on the Capitol, the beacon of democracy to the world, an assault on the Constitution of the United States. It was an insurrection instigated by the President of

the United States. They knew how bad it wasigated by the president of the United States. They knew how bad it was. That's why they had to have revisionist history to change the story. And that's really shameful. God bless Liz Cheney for speaking out and Adam Kinzinger and speaking out on all that. Why do you think, though, the American voters didn't care? Well, you have to ask the American voters because I think, sometimes I think when I'm talking, listening to them, that they're saying, American democracy is very strong. It can withstand anything. Well, I hope they're right. And that's what I've listened to.

That somehow Americans have never experienced, you know, democratic backsliding as you've seen in other countries, and they just sort of discounted the argument? Well, some of them. I have great confidence in the American people. I believe by and large they're patriotic, they care about our Constitution, and that they are good people. And an election is an election, but I do believe that we'll have an opportunity now to show a distinction when they see what comes down the pike, and hopefully it'll be not so harmful. And so I don't know that we can label everybody as saying everybody thought that democracy was not at risk. No, plenty of people did. Plenty of people did. A lot of Democrats stayed home. That's what the numbers show, that there wasn't as robust turnout as had been hoped. Why do you think that was? Well, in some places it was because there weren't really races. You know, in other words,

they use example of some big cities. There were no races that mattered in terms of who would be president. It was clear in their state and that. And also in terms of Congress and other races, there was clearly going to be Democratic. So some people were not motivated to turn out. But that's not unusual. Do you worry, though, about what you're seeing in California and New York? Big Democratic strongholds, it saw quite a bit of erosion. I mean, a lot of the competitive House races are in California. When you look at the map, does it concern you? New York picked up four seats in the past nine months. Picked up four Democratic seats in the

last nine months. Tom Suozzi, to begin with, earlier in the year, but three Tuesday night. Picked up three Democratic seats in New York. So no, I'm not worried about that. But President Trump performed 20 percentage points better in the Bronx and Queens than he did in 2020. So I guess my question is, is this the Trump effect, that he is just a uniquely popular person? Or is this something that the Democrats aren't doing right? No, we did it right. We won four seats in New York. And that means you focus where you need to focus to win. And the focus was in those seats. And state of New York knew it was going to go for the Democrat. It was going to go for Kamala Harris. So within the state, we were focusing on how we increase the number of

House races. So we go to those districts, and we go to those districts, and we won those districts. But what does that shift, it doesn't concern you? In the Bronx and Queens? From one race to the other, it just depends on what the issues are that are there. I think what we were told in the last election in New York is that safety was a big issue and the emphasis was not as strong as it should have been. But you have to talk to the New Yorkers about their district. I'm just so proud of them. Hakeem Jeffries, he will be speaker either in a few days or in a couple of years. But I think it will be in a few days.

And he did a masterful job in New York in this election. After the break, I talked to Speaker Emerita Pelosi about the mood of the party and the path forward. Yeah, we don't like losing. And there are people who professionally go around saying what Bernie said and what some press say. But I don't think it's ugly in the Democratic Party now at all. You yourself were re-elected on Tuesday. Congratulations. Yes, thank you. To your 20th term, which is extraordinary. It is that. I'm very proud of that. Is it your last term?

I'm not here to talk about that. I'm here to fight the fight so that we win in the next election. I must have thought I've had a last term over and over again in time myself, but as fate would have it, the mission called. Some of Trump's actual last words

on the campaign were about you. Yeah. He called you evil, sick, crazy. He called you the B word and then stopped himself. He's promised to prosecute you and other Democrats if reelected. Are you concerned that he's going to make good on his threat? I'm concerned about what his presidency means to the everyday life of the American people. That is why we're here, for the people. So again, if I was concerned about what he said about me, that's been going on since, what I am concerned about is what it means when he says with his Project 2025 that he's going to eliminate the Department of Education, that he's going to take over the Department of Justice, that he's going to repeal the Affordable Care Act. And now they're saying even the CHIPS Act.

That's what concerns me. If I were concerned about what he says about me, what would be my worth if I cared about what he said about me? Well, we should say that your husband, Paul Pelosi, whom I know a little because we serve on a university board together, and he was the victim of political violence. So I imagine that threats against you ring differently now because of that. Well, the thing that's so sad about that is they violated the sanctity of our home, the safety of my husband, looking for me. Where is Nancy? Where is Nancy? Echoing what was said on January 6th in the Capitol when they were coming after me to put a bullet in my head. And he was going to punish me for what I had said

about Donald Trump. So yeah, that's a concern. It's a concern to me because of what happened to my husband when they were looking for me. What was sad about it, too, for my children, my grandchildren, my husband, and for me, was that President Trump thought it was funny. He made a joke of it, as did his children, as did the governor, the Republican governor of Virginia, as did Elon Musk. They thought that was really funny, that he would get almost murdered by somebody hitting him over the head with a hammer, and they thought that was really funny, that he would get almost murdered by somebody hitting him over the head with a hammer. And disagreement is what a democracy is about. So we don't expect everybody to think the same. That's not what this is.

It's about having your differences of opinion. As President Thomas Jefferson said, every difference of opinion is not a difference of conscience. When you have a difference that conscience. When you have a difference that is, then you have to stand your ground. I mean, President Trump has promised to use the Justice Department and the Attorney General to go after his perceived enemies. He has said that over and over again. And you're one of them. Well, you would think that that would be enough reason for people not to vote for him. But that's what he said.

And so when people say to me, why do you think our democracy is in danger? I'll say, well, let's define our democracy. What is democracy? Free and fair elections, peaceful transfer of power, independence of the judiciary, the rule of law, all of those kinds of things are part of a democracy. So if he's going after those things, and thank God, the only, shall we say, peace of mind that we have today is that we don't have the assault on the system that it would have been there had Kamala Harris won. That isn't right. It shouldn't be that way. And that he would say, he would say, maybe thought it, might even want to do it, but to say it and the American people would say, that's okay with me. But they did say it's okay with them because that's who they elected. So I wonder if this has been a moment for you to reevaluate whether you think you actually understand this country.

No, I do. I do. I understand what was happening out there. I've traveled the country quite a bit about it and see what is, you know, look, I've been the target not just of him, but a lot of these people who are out there who don't like the fact that I criticize him. But I think that we make a very big mistake if we underestimate the greatness of the American people and the greatness of our democracy and the greatness of our country. So, no, I don't think that at all. We have elections. People make decisions. We go on to the next thing.

And then we show the difference between the two parties and any other party that is involved in it and with great pride of what we stand for. And that's what we have to point out is the difference. And that's why I had my concerns earlier this year that there wasn't enough clarification in the public mind as to what we set out to do. We have to do that better next time. I don't have to tell you that right now it's pretty ugly among Democrats. There's a lot of blame going around. There's a lot of reflection happening. And there's

a lot of discussion about how the party rebuilds after this and how does it not tear itself apart? Well, I disagree. I don't think it's very ugly among Democrats now. Yeah, we don't like losing. I was on a meeting this morning, which is, I don't talk about what happens at a caucus meeting, but I can say it was unified and respectful of what the responsibilities that we have to go forward, praiseworthy of our leadership. It was long, and people took their time to tell how they saw things. And it was, in my view, as unifying as I've ever seen it. And it wasn't without concern. It wasn't without wisdom and intelligence about what happened.

It wasn't Pollyanna-ish, but it was productive. And it was about how we go forward to be bipartisan where we can, be transparent, in all cases accountable to the public, but prepare to win the next time. So yeah, we don't like losing. And there are people who professionally go around saying what Bernie said and what some press say, but I don't think it's ugly in the Democratic Party now at all. I've traveled a lot and worked a lot in other countries. And I've seen a lot of populist leaders. And populists have this warping effect on the body politic because the opposition to them gets distilled into just being against the populist leader as opposed to standing for something

bigger. Do you worry that the Democratic Party could be transformed into simply the anti-Trump party? And do you think that is what happened in this election? No, I don't think so. I think some people perceived it that way, but that's perception. I don't think that at all. That's not our purpose. Now, I will say this in terms of your question. Populism in this country and in some of those countries now is not just about populism in terms of's something more, shall we say, to be concerned about what they're saying. They're saying a religious, a Christian nationalist country. Well, all of those words are a problem. A religious country? A nationalist country? No. So right now, your question is a really important one because

populism is one thing. Xenophobic, religious, nationalist populism is dangerous. And that is what we have to make sure the public sees the difference in. And you can't just say, we have to accept religious, populist, xenophobic populism because food prices are lower. If that's what this is about, we're as bad as the richest people in America saying, I know Trump is whatever he is, but I just care about my tax return. Billionaires, not all of them, of course. I don't pay everybody the same. You're talking about Elon Musk and others. We're talking about the conspicuous ones, but not only them.

So in any case, this is, America's a great country. The American people deserve the best we can give them. The election was disappointing, heartbreaking in some ways because of not seeing what was really at stake. But we don't blame them for that. We have to be clear in our message. And I'm a big believer in mobilization. You can maneuver in Congress and government all you want, and that's important. But you cannot succeed unless you mobilize outside so that the people weigh in. What is the plan with the Trump administration?

Would you advise Democrats to try and fight and be oppositional? Or are you going to try and work with Republicans? No, it's not a question of that. We always try to work with Republicans. That's a responsibility that we have. It used to be that way until recent times, but it used to be that way, that we always tried to find our common ground. That was our responsibility, and it still is. But I will say this, that where we disagree, we disagree. He's twice impeached? He's been legally tried. I have to say the Supreme Court has been an embarrassment to our founders just to have immunity for any president, whoever it might be, and to do so and take forever to do it so that justice could not be addressed one way or another. But you know what?

I'm not here, again, my thoughts about Donald Trump are well known. I'm not an admirer of his lack of patriotism and the rest, but I'm not here to go into that. He's the president. We all want the president to succeed. We wanted him to succeed in 2016 until he went down a path that we had to disagree with. But again, let's give this a chance and see where we can find our common ground. We'll see what is rhetoric and what is real. Let's see what materializes, and we'll fight every fight along the way.

But it's no use going into his personal situation. The public has ignored that, or some of, enough of them have. So that's that. Let's just, let's just move on. But we're going to show the difference. You're going to see, it's going to be pretty exciting for what comes next in the Democratic Party. Madam Speaker, thank you very much for your time. Thank you. My pleasure to be here. Thank you. That's Speaker Emerita, Nancy Pelosi. This conversation was produced by Seth Kelly. It was edited by Annabelle Bacon,

mixing by Afim Shapiro. Original music by Dan Powell and Marian Lozano. Photography by Devin Yalkin. Thank you. Paula Schumann and Sam Dolnick. If you like what you're hearing, follow or subscribe to The Interview wherever you get your podcasts. To read or listen to any of our conversations, you can always go to nytimes.com slash theinterview. And you can email us anytime at theinterview at nytimes.com. Next week, David talks with Dr. Ellen Weed, a longtime advocate for and practitioner of medical assistance in dying.

When somebody gets a diagnosis, instantly, when you have that horrible diagnosis, you also know your options right from the beginning. I'm Lulu Garcia Navarro, and this is The Interview from The New York Times.