Today, Explained - Madam Speaker

Episode Date: November 29, 2018

Nancy Pelosi is now officially the nominee for Speaker of the House. Time's Molly Ball explains who's happy and who's mad about it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Support for the show today comes from Quip Electric Toothbrushes. The Quip Electric Toothbrush starts at just $25. Your first set of refills is free. After that, the refills cost about $5 every three months. You can find out more at getquip.com. Getquip.com. We had a most unifying session just now in the House Democratic Caucus, the new House Democratic Caucus, the most diverse caucus ever. And it was so inspiring to hear my colleagues place my name in nomination once again for

Speaker of the House. How moving it was. Nancy Pelosi came one step closer to regaining her role as Speaker of the House yesterday. Democrats held a secret ballot vote on making her the official nominee. 203 voted for her, 32 voted against. And those 32 Democrats voted against her even though she's running uncontested. That's just how it goes when you're Nancy Pelosi. Your own party's not fully behind you,

and the other party... And of course, the MS-13 lover, Nancy Pelosi. Men and women risk their lives all over this planet protecting us. And she has now viciously and dishonestly turned on them. It is despicable. I probably shouldn't say this, but I'm going to be frank. Billy goat brain, mockingbird mouth. So, Molly Ball, you're a national political correspondent for Time magazine.

I wonder, you know, Nancy Pelosi is this politician so divisive and so unpopular that, you know, when Republicans weren't talking about the caravan, they were basically talking about Nancy Pelosi during the midterm campaign season, vilifying her. If you could sum up Nancy Pelosi in one word, what would it be? I think the word would be persistent. And that was how we described her in my cover story about Nancy Pelosi, which I mentioned not to brag about the fact that it was on the cover, but because until I wrote that profile, she had never been featured on the cover of an American news magazine. She was the first woman speaker in history, and she'd never been

on the cover. And I think that fact opens the door to a lot of interesting questions about her and about women and about perception in politics. I think I'd like to hear a lot more about that, but before we get there, I wonder if you could sort of take us back to the earlier days of Nancy Pelosi. Like, where is she even from? Where did she come from? People may not realize because she's so cemented in the public imagination as San Francisco liberal Nancy Pelosi. She was born in Baltimore, and her political education very much came from that. Her father was a member of Congress at the time that she was born, representing Baltimore in the House of Representatives. And by the time she was seven, he had become mayor of Baltimore. So she recalls being chauffeured to and from her Catholic school

and sort of being political royalty and helping with her father's campaigns from an early age. And the way that local politics works in so many places, but certainly in Baltimore, anybody who's watched The Wire probably understands it's so much about favor trading and tribal politics. It's the sort of ethnic tribes of the city being marshaled into a political machine. We were raised in a family that was extremely proud of our Italian-American heritage,

extremely proud of that, and in our case, staunchly democratic. She was a Democrat before she was a liberal. She was a Democrat as a matter of inheritance. It was just who she was. When John F. Kennedy came along when she was in college and she actually attended his inauguration. She and many of her peers idolized him. And I think her politics are still very much like his, a sort of Catholic social justice philosophy. The way you tell it, it makes it sound like Nancy Pelosi getting into politics was, you know, preordained. But I wonder, was there a moment where it all came together for her?

How exactly did her career in politics start and when? It's funny, it was and it wasn't preordained because she was a girl, pretty much. She was never seen as a potential politician within her family. And it was one of her brothers who ended up following in her father's footsteps and also becoming mayor of Baltimore. But she very much came of age in a time, I mean, this is the 1950s. So the idea that even an educated woman would go on to have any kind of career was still rather exotic. got married, moved to New York with her husband, who's a banker, had five children in quick succession, and really saw herself as a traditional wife, mother, housewife, until they moved to San Francisco, and she started raising money for the Democratic Party, getting involved in Democratic

politics. And all of this, I think, because of her background, came very naturally to her. But the moment that she got into politics, I love this story. And the way she tells it is so funny. She had been, when her children were young, volunteering for the library system in San Francisco. And then one day, the mayor, who was an Italian-American, Joe Aliotto, called her up and said, Nancy, what are you doing? Stirring a big pot of pasta? And she says, he's kind of a chauvinist. He assumes that this is what a woman is doing all day, slaving over a stove. She said, no, I'm reading the paper. What do you want? He said, I want you to be on the library board. This is an appointed position that the mayor appoints. And she said, oh, I don't need any kind of official recognition. I love the library. I love the work that I'm doing to help the library,

but I don't need to be in that kind of position. And he lectured her. He said, if you're going to do the work, you should get the credit and you should have the power to make decisions. And she describes it as an ironic lesson coming from this sort of male chauvinist, but it was a very powerful feminist lesson for her that as a woman, you have to demand authority. You have to demand to be in a position of power and not just to be on the sidelines. And from there, she went on to do a whole lot of behind the scenes political work. And it was only in 1987 when her friend Sala Burton, who was the congresswoman for San Francisco, was dying of cancer, literally called her friend Nancy Pelosi to her bedside. And as her almost dying wish demanded that Pelosi run

for the seat when she was gone. And within a few months, she had died. Pelosi got into the race. She was very much an underdog in a 14-way Democratic primary. But she won that race, and the rest is history. So how does she go from Congressperson Nancy Pelosi to Speaker Pelosi? Yeah, well, once again, as a fledgling member of Congress, she claimed she never had any designs on leadership. She just wanted to represent her district well.

And a lot of that at that time had to do with the AIDS crisis. Representing urban San Francisco, there was obviously a large gay population in her district and a huge epicenter for the AIDS crisis. And she did a lot of really important work for the gay community, including co-sponsoring Getting Past the Ryan White Act, which secured federal funding for AIDS treatment. Not only getting that through Congress, but getting a Republican president to sign it. So she did distinguish herself as a legislator. And then when the one Californian who'd been in leadership stepped down, she thought, well, her state could use more representation in the Democratic leadership in Congress.

She and Steny Hoyer, the congressman from Maryland, who actually had known each other when they were both in college and interning for the same congressman on Capitol Hill, they started running against each other in a very bitter and hard fought, and because Democrats then lost the next couple of elections, so a spot didn't actually open up, ended up being a four- year campaign of them lobbying their colleagues for this one position in the leadership, which she eventually won. A historic day in the House as Nancy Pelosi is elected the first woman speaker. The Honorable Nancy Pelosi of the state of California. How effective was she as Speaker of the House bringing together both sides or just passing legislation on behalf of the Democrats?

What are Nancy Pelosi's greatest hits? It is really an incredible roster of accomplishments when you look at everything she was able to get done. And it's easy to forget how hard that job is. Nancy Pelosi is extremely good at managing her caucus and at counting votes and at figuring out how to strike the deal that everybody can agree to. Especially once Barack Obama won the presidency and Democrats had control of the House, Senate, and White House, a huge raft of sort of pent-up liberal wish list items that had been incubating during the time that Republicans were in power finally unleashed. And even a lot of things that the party wanted to do that couldn't get through the Senate, like cap and trade and

card check for unions, Pelosi was able to get them through the House. But her crowning achievement was Obamacare, was the Affordable Care Act, which, again, there were months and months of negotiations involved. There was all kinds of ideological complications, different members wanting different things. And she was really instrumental in shepherding that process in getting the legislation through the House, and in refusing to give up. The yeas are 220. The nays are 215. The bill is passed. Coming up, Nancy Pelosi becomes a supervillain. We will be joining those who established Social Security, Medicare, and now tonight, health care for all Americans. This is Today Explained.

Hello? Hey, is this Tim from New York? Oh my God, it's my favorite podcast host. Hey, yeah, it's Sean from Today Explained. So, you know, I got a confession to make, Tim. You know, you mentioned this week on the show that you've been not brushing your teeth, that you've been trying to have better dental hygiene, but you're, like, wishing upon a quip. We're hoping that one spontaneously appears. I thought I could make that happen because I had one, an extra one, but I opened up the

package and it was just the Quip refills and the toothpaste. Oh no. What am I going to do, Sean? I don't know. I think you're maybe- My teeth are dying from Quip. Oh, I feel so badly about it. I really thought I could come through for you, Tim.

Oh man. Am I going to have to buy one myself? There's always getquip.com slash explain where you can find the quip for $25 and your first set of refills is free. I'm going to wipe this film off my mouth and teeth and then go to that website right now. There's always hoping that, you know, someone else is listening and knows you. Santa? Santa Claus? Or maybe my roommate? Are they listeners?

My roommate's a listener. I don't know about Santa. All right, roommate. Tim from New York needs a new clip. Manny, if you're listening. Molly, when exactly does Nancy Pelosi become this person that people hate? Well, that's been going on basically forever. And 2018 is not the first time that she has been the target of Republicans' attacks. But to answer your question, it's been at least a decade, at least since she became the leader of the Democrats, that Republicans have viewed her as a ripe target. Back in 2010, in the midterms where the Republicans defeated her and she stopped being speaker, there was a banner above the

Republican Congressional Committee's office that said, fire Pelosi. And that was their campaign theme. Everybody at the local Republican headquarters was wearing one of these buttons today, fire Pelosi. It's because they're national chairman, Michael Steele, is driving around in this bus, this fire Pelosi bus. RNC chairman Michael Steele is using the bus to rally the GOP troops in Florida by creating a common enemy, Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House, who is running for re-election in California. She has been turned into this extremely polarizing figure. And in part, her allies will say it's because she has chosen to take the flack, right? Nobody is in all these other members' districts running pro-Nancy Pelosi ads. So the only messaging that voters have is hundreds and

hundreds of millions of dollars of Republican attack ads that present her as this scary creature who can't possibly be given any power. But it is not necessarily an effective strategy, right? I mean, we just had a midterm election in which a staggering amount of Republican ads were about Nancy Pelosi. I don't have the final figure for the entire election, but in the special election in Pennsylvania back in March, 57 percent of all of the Republican ads made were about Nancy Pelosi. That was something that Republicans fell back on again this year, in part, I think, because a number of other messages they tried were not resonating. And from the looks of it, given the way the Democrats resoundingly took back the House of Representatives, it didn't really work. President Trump was out there with the rest of them saying, you know, vilifying Nancy Pelosi and saying how

dangerous she would be for the country. But then the very day after the election, he was congratulatory, said he looked forward to working with Speaker Pelosi when once she was confirmed. Is any of it real? Does anyone actually believe she's a boogeyman? Or is it just a crock that's convenient? One of the things that is so impressive is that, you know, Pelosi got a lot done when she was the speaker and Democrats controlled all the branches of government. But that's the easy part. The hard part is when you're in the minority and you're trying to defend your policy priorities against a hostile administration in Congress. And one of the really amazing things in the past couple of years is how she has as he was signing it because it was so loaded up with goodies for the Democrats.

She knows where the pressure points are. I had one Republican member of Congress tell me that he thinks she can count Republican votes better than the Republican leaders can. And she knows exactly how much leverage she has, and she knows how to use it. So even in what ought to be, I think, the least powerful leadership position in all of Washington, she's been able to get a surprising amount done. Her personal relationship with Trump is kind of a funny one.

He's always been sort of solicitous of her. They get along to a point when they're in the room together. And as you'll recall, in his first year in office, Trump several times flirted with this idea of doing deals with Chuck and Nancy until he either thought better of it or people around him talked him out of it. But I think the best case scenario for Pelosi and the Democrats is that Trump decides to try to do some bipartisan stuff that they actually like. And so she's talked about things like a big infrastructure package or regulation of

prescription drug prices as areas where she and Trump might actually be able to get something done in a bipartisan manner. At the same time, you've got all these Democrats calling for new leadership in the party and saying that, you know, this is the time for new blood in the party. And Nancy Pelosi is 78 years old. Why does Nancy Pelosi still think Nancy Pelosi is the person for this job? Well, for one thing, there's nobody else who wants it, apparently. She doesn't have an opponent in the leadership elections. There is quite a lot of angst in the Democratic caucus about the problem of having three top leaders who are all in their 70s. And that is partly by design. She hasn't anointed or

groomed a successor in part because if she did, that person would then be a threat to her. So there's nobody else who could obviously do it. But then there's also just the fact that she is so good at that job. Even when other Democrats have raised questions about her, or when Tim Ryan, the congressman from Ohio, ran against her two years ago and got 63 votes, about a third of the caucus. The complaints have always been about her political toxicity. You hear people say, you know, the Democratic Party needs a new face, we can't go back to our districts and tell our constituents that we put Pelosi in charge, et cetera, et cetera., what you do not hear

them say is, I think someone else could do a better job counting votes. I think someone else could do a better job negotiating with Trump and the Republicans. I think somebody else could do a better job getting the caucus unified around a message and a set of policy priorities. Nobody really thinks anybody's better at that. Is there a chance that Nancy Pelosi is sticking around and continuing to be the best person at and a set of policy priorities. Nobody really thinks anybody's better at that. Is there a chance that Nancy Pelosi sticking around and continuing to be the best person at that doesn't make room for someone else in the Democratic Party to be better at that? Yes, absolutely. And that is a big part of the problem is that she and the other leaders of the Democrats in Congress have not allowed younger Democrats to grow in that way. I think that as a caucus, we can be stronger if we develop the talent that we have,

you know, individually. There comes a time when you have to provide those opportunities to members that are talented, or they will begin to leave. That is a big part of the angst about Pelosi. Some of it she considers ageist or sexist. When it comes to personal ambition, having fun on TV, have your fun. I love the arena. I thrive on competition. But it's just true that it's hard for a new generation to get a lot of oxygen when the leadership is holding so tightly onto power. I know we talked about, you know, all of her greatest hits. What were Nancy Pelosi's biggest misses?

I think a lot of her biggest misses are political. She doesn't necessarily have the best political instincts. Ever since that first Democratic primary in San Francisco that she won in 1987, she's never had a competitive race. And she has repeatedly been a part of attempts to win back the House of Representatives that have failed. And I've had a lot of Democratic members complain to me that her political radar is sort of stuck in the 90s. Nancy Pelosi was a great speaker. She is a great leader. But her time has come and gone. Yes, she's a great fundraiser, but if the money that we are raising through her leadership is not helping us win elections, then we have to have this difficult conversation now.

She also emphasizes that members should run local campaigns for their districts. She wants Democratic candidates to carve out their own identities and appeal to voters based on the political geography of wherever they happen to live. And that sounds fine, but increasingly what we have in the United States are nationalized campaigns. Increasingly, if you are running for Congress in the middle of Iowa, you have to answer for Nancy Pelosi. If everyone's running against Nancy Pelosi, why is Nancy Pelosi still running for a congressional district in San Francisco? Why doesn't she run for a bigger office? It's interesting. When she first got into leadership, she was a new and seemingly fresh face in politics.

And there were calls for her to run for president. This was something that was talked about when she was a little bit younger. She says she's never been interested in anything else. I just wanted to ask you, will you be the first woman president in 2016? No. Thank you so much. That's lovely of you to ask. No, that won't be happening. One of the reasons that I am, shall we say, successful in becoming the Speaker of the House and as the Democratic leader and passing Affordable Care Act and things like that is because my members know one thing.

I'm there for them. This does seem like she's in the right place, given her skill at what she does. But I think there's also an element of vindication. She was speaker for four years. She had democratic control of the government for two years and got a whole raft of things done. And then they lost and she's been leading her caucus sort of in the wilderness ever since 2011. I think that same persistence that's always been part of her DNA, that doggedness, that refusal to give up, I think there was a part of her that felt she would only ever be vindicated by getting the house back and becoming speaker again. Now that she has that, now that at least it appears to be in sight, that, I think, will give for the cover of Time magazine. I'm Sean Ramos from This Is Today Explained. Thanks again to Quip for supporting the show today.

You could give a Quip electric toothbrush to someone too. You don't just have to buy one for yourself. You can do so by going to getquip.com slash explain where your first set of refills is free. Huh. Anil Dash, we've been talking about your podcast Function with Anil Dash on the show all week. Tell me about an episode you're really excited about.

Well, I think there's one that people are going to just latch onto if you've spent any time at all on Twitter, which is why is it so hard for them to make an edit button for tweets? This is to change a tweet that's already sent. Exactly. And, you know, it turns out learning by talking to some of the people that were engineering managers, Twitter and other folks, that there is a lot of complexity and maybe there are some damn good reasons not to actually build this feature.

I guess when so much of our news is being shaped on Twitter, edit buttons could be a little sketch, right? Yeah, you know, and it goes down to this fundamental thing we have in culture and society overall, which is can we trust the things we read or the things that we see true and accurate? Have they been distorted? Have they been modified? And thinking about all the implications of that around the world, as well as, you know, I'm sure the tech parts of this are pretty hard, too. And to bring those sort of two stories together, whether it's somebody who's building products at Twitter

or a journalist who had accidentally tweeted out something incorrect on NPR's account to millions of people, you know, that was just such an eye-opening perspective to get on what seemed like, to me at first, something pretty simple. And that's in the feed right now, Function with Anil Dash.