The Speaker: How Nancy Pelosi Changed the Face of Power

Rep. Nancy Pelosi will retire following the 2026 midterm elections, bringing to end her almost 40-year career in Congress. In a new five-part podcast series, “The Speaker,” KQED’s Scott Shafer embarked on an ambitious reporting project to capture the story of the first woman Speaker of the House. Shafer traces how Pelosi rose from unlikely Congressional candidate to one of the most powerful women in American politics. Shafer and Pelosi biographer Susan Page joins us to talk about Pelosi’s political legacy and where the Democratic Party goes from here.

Guest:

• Scott Shafer, senior politics correspondent at KQED’s Politics and Government desk and Political Breakdown co-host
• Susan Page, Washington Bureau Chief, USA Today; author, “Madam Speaker: Nancy Pelosi and the Lessons of Power”
• Padmini Raghunath, series editor, “The Speaker”

This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.

Lesley McClurg: Welcome to Forum. I’m Lesley McClurg. I’m in today for Mina Kim.

Nancy Pelosi. After nearly four decades representing San Francisco in Congress, she is preparing to leave office. She was the first woman elected Speaker of the House and obviously became one of the most consequential figures in American politics.

We are joined by two journalists who know her story inside and out. Our own Scott Shafer, who is senior politics correspondent here at KQED and the host of a new podcast about Nancy Pelosi called The Speaker. Welcome, Scott.

Scott Shafer: Thanks.

Lesley McClurg: We’re also joined by Susan Page. She is Washington Bureau Chief for USA Today and author of Madam Speaker: Nancy Pelosi and the Lessons of Power. Welcome, Susan.

Susan Page: It’s great to be with you.

Lesley McClurg: Scott, you sat down with Nancy for five interviews for this series, for this new podcast series, and you noted that she tends to push back. Sometimes she’s not an easy interview. She’s maybe even a little reticent to talk about her legacy, even though that was the point of these interviews. What was the dynamic? What was it like in the room with her?

Scott Shafer: Well, it depends on what you were talking about. I mean, she’s very gracious. You know, if you go to her office in D.C., there’s bowls of Ghirardelli chocolate everywhere. You know, she’s really friendly. But when you sit down to interview her, she’s like, everything she does is very focused. And if she doesn’t like either the question or the way the question is framed or the assumption behind the question, she’ll let you know.

You know, I talked with her at one point about what I described as the turmoil in the Democratic Party, you know, based on some of the primary battles in some of the states, like Michigan. And she just, you know, she jumped right in and she goes, “I wouldn’t call it turmoil.” It’s not — you know, she will let you know how she feels.

And then probably the most contentious conversation I had with her was over her endorsement of Connie Chan in the race to replace her in the congressional race. And, you know, we’re journalists, right? We ask questions, and she really didn’t like the questions. She didn’t like being questioned, her judgment being questioned. You know, and she let me know that in no uncertain terms. And she told me at one point, “You sound like the Chronicle or the Examiner, and they’re irrelevant.”

Lesley McClurg: I heard that. It was a great little clip. Susan, what about you? Was there a particular contentious moment in the — I think you sat with her for 11 interviews when you wrote her biography.

Susan Page: You know, she’s such a tough interview because she is so accustomed to being in control and because she has talking points. It’s really hard to get her off the things that she has said before and that she intends to say.

I was grateful for the interviews that I had, but we had some contentious moments. At one point, when I was asking her some questions about a scandal involving her brother when he was young, she did not think this was an appropriate topic for us to be talking about. She made that clear.

And there was one particular interview where she had just come back from a very combative meeting with the Squad, with those very liberal, then-new members of Congress who were giving her some trouble. And at that point, she wasn’t mad at me, but she was fired up about them. And I’ve got to say, that turned out to be the best interview I had with her.

Lesley McClurg: Scott, did you find, as you were doing this work, that there was a particular theme that ran through her career?

Scott Shafer: Yeah, and I think we’ve kind of alluded to it. I mean, her personal tenacity and discipline, her focus. Her phrase is basically just, “Win, baby.” She is focused on winning, whether it is getting a bill passed or blocking a nomination or impeaching a president or getting your preferred candidate elected in the race to replace you. She is all in.

I don’t think she does anything half-heartedly. And so that, I think you see that throughout her entire career, her entire life, really, including when she was younger.

Is she fierce or likable in that role? Both. That’s the thing about Nancy Pelosi. She’s been described as a steel fist in a Gucci glove or the velvet hammer — what a pickier metaphor. She is both very gracious and charming.

I think one of the secrets to her rise was her relationships with her caucus. And not just her caucus, but people in general. Gets to know people, their families, their birthdays, their anniversaries, when there’s a death in the family, a divorce, and that personal touch. While she is, yes, she is fierce on your behalf as well as against you if she doesn’t like, you know, where you’re coming from.

Lesley McClurg: Susan, what do you think is at the heart of her legacy? Four decades.

Susan Page: Four decades. Well, of course, one thing that will be in the first line of every obituary will be that she was the first woman Speaker of the House. She was, and I think remains, the most powerful woman in the history of the American government.

Now, some would say Kamala Harris was higher ranking because she was vice president, but if you’re looking at political power to get things done, there’s no comparison between those two roles.

I think she is also an architect of the Affordable Care Act, which was the greatest expansion of health care coverage in a generation, and just generally a force to be reckoned with, including her ability to help lead Democrats to majorities in the House, which enabled her to do all those other things.

Lesley McClurg: Scott, you were here for the last three decades covering government and politics in San Francisco, and you watched Gavin Newsom and Kamala Harris rise, their careers going all the way up to the national stage. What is unique about San Francisco that kind of forges these political candidates like Nancy Pelosi?

Scott Shafer: You know, I think San Francisco is a city of about 800,000 people, and it’s been punching above its weight in politics for decades, going all the way back to Phil Burton, you know, who was also a powerhouse representing San Francisco in Congress.

To me, I — it’s several things. You know, it’s being described, San Francisco politics, as a knife fight in a phone booth. Fifty shades of blue. It’s mostly all Democratic, relatively liberal, maybe a little left of center, a little right of center by San Francisco standards.

And if you could emerge from that cauldron where you have to go around and talk to the Chinese American Democratic Club and the Raoul Wallenberg Democratic Club and the Arab American Democratic Club and the environmental group, you know, and on and on, and on, you learn how to talk with different constituencies, how to build coalitions, how to take incoming fire.

And if you can emerge from that environment, as Dianne Feinstein did, Gavin Newsom did, obviously Nancy Pelosi, Barbara Boxer, to a certain extent, although she was more Marin, you’re kind of prepared for battle.

Uh, and so it really, it’s like — it, it like being on the farm team, you know, and you’ve really learned how to be the, like, best pitcher or whatever hitter or whatever it might be. Uh, so if you emerge from San Francisco, it was like, wow, you’ve been tested.

Lesley McClurg: I love that metaphor. In the very first episode of the series that came out, I think, last Wednesday — our second episode comes out today — so in that first episode, you focus on the 1987 special election. And this is following Sala Burton’s death. Tell us who is Sala Burton. You mentioned the Burton family just a minute ago. And what was her relationship to Nancy Pelosi?

Scott Shafer: Yeah, so Sala Burton was married to Phil Burton. Phil Burton almost became the first, you know, Speaker of the House from California. You know, he came just like a couple of votes short of being majority leader, and he was a firebrand. He’s largely responsible for protecting the Northern California coast, the Golden Gate Recreation Act. And he was sort of that architect of coalition politics, bringing in gay people and Asian Americans and labor and Italian Americans and all the rest.

And so Sala Burton was married to him, and Phil Burton died suddenly, I think he was 56 years old, of an aneurysm, which was shocking to everybody. And so Sala Burton, as often happens, the widow, took his place and won election and then re-election. But then she got cancer and was dying.

And on her deathbed, she summoned John Burton, her brother-in-law, and also Nancy Pelosi and others. And she said to them, “I want Nancy Pelosi to take my place.”

And that was shocking. In fact, John Burton told us years later that when she said, “I want Nancy to take my place,” they thought she was talking about Nancy Walker, who was a liberal member of the Board of Supervisors.

It was not at all in their vision, but Sala Burton saw something in Nancy Pelosi that I think more people came to see after she rose in politics.

Lesley McClurg: And what was Nancy Pelosi’s response to that?

Scott Shafer: Well, she said to us, you know, Sala said to me, “I want you to run for my seat, and I want you to tell me right now,” because she was very sick.

And Pelosi said, you know, I asked her, “Why had you never thought of running for office?” And she said, “Well, it was like, why had I never gone skydiving?” You know, it’s just — no, no, no. And no, she would work on the inside of politics. Not like she was not familiar with politics, but being the out-front elected official had not occurred to her.

So she had to ask her one remaining daughter at home. She had six kids. And, uh, her daughter, you know, Alexandra, was a teenager at that time, and she said, “What teenage girl wouldn’t want her mother out of the house most of the week?”

Padmini Raghunath: Go do it, Mama. Get out there.

Scott Shafer: Get out there. Get a life, she said, literally. And so that’s what she had to get the sign-off from her family, but then she was good to go.

Lesley McClurg: And she entered a really intense contest. She was up against Harry Britt, who was another left-leaning candidate. And he had the backing of Harvey Milk’s political movement and the very deeply organized gay community at the time, which was reeling from the AIDS epidemic. Let’s hear a clip from Britt at the —

Harry Britt: So I think it’s legitimate for us to point out that the people who care the most about AIDS, and certainly the gay community, which cares in a passionate way about AIDS, is very united behind my candidacy.

Lesley McClurg: But was the gay community skeptical or behind Pelosi? How did they feel about Pelosi?

Scott Shafer: You know, there was a split, but I would say, if I had to guess, I would say it was two to one, you know, for Harry Britt. There were some more moderate folks in the gay community, you know, maybe a little more business-oriented, who supported Nancy Pelosi.

And she had key support from the Burton machine, from Art Agnos and Willie Brown and Phil Burton, John Burton, and she had a very savvy campaign operation.

But, you know, the gay community wanted their own representative, especially during the AIDS epidemic. We had, you know, President Reagan. George Deukmejian was governor, two Republicans, and they wanted somebody to go back to D.C. and fight for them.

And they didn’t see — they didn’t know Nancy Pelosi and didn’t think she was the right person to do that. But she promised that that’s what she would do. But they still thought, you know, Harry Britt is the one who’s really going to understand what we need as LGBTQ people in the district.

And that’s largely who they voted for, but it wasn’t unanimous by any means.

Lesley McClurg: Let’s hear a clip from a televised 1987 debate that was hosted right here at KQED. It’s featured in the first episode of your series. And this is where Pelosi faces attacks for self-funding and for being a socialite and for being an establishment pick.

Harry Britt: And what we have is, we have in this election somebody saying, “The machine backs me. I’ve got a million bucks. I don’t live in your district. I’ve never met many of your slobs, but I’m going to be your new leader because I got bucks and I’m powerful.”

Moderator: How can she relate to people like me, a single parent, working mother, or somebody else?

Moderator: Let’s let Nancy answer.

Nancy Pelosi: I don’t think you have to be sick to be a doctor or poor to understand the problems of the poor. I have spent my life committed to the ideals of the Democratic Party.

Lesley McClurg: We are talking about the legacy of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who you just heard there in a 1987 debate that happened right here at KQED. We are joined by Scott Shafer, he is senior politics correspondent, and Susan Page is Washington Bureau Chief of USA Today. We’ll be right back after this break.

We’d love to hear from you. Do you have a favorite moment or a favorite memory of Nancy Pelosi? Give us a call right now and tell us about it. 866-733-6786. Again, that’s 866-733-6786. We’ll be right back after this break.

Welcome back to Forum. We’re talking about the legacy of Speaker Nancy Pelosi. She is about to retire after four decades representing San Francisco in Congress.

We are joined by Scott Shafer. He’s senior politics correspondent right here at KQED. And Susan Page is Washington Bureau Chief for USA Today. She’s also author of Madam Speaker: Nancy Pelosi and the Lessons of Power.

We’d love to hear from you. Tell us about your favorite moment or maybe your favorite memory from Nancy Pelosi’s career. What do you think will be Pelosi’s legacy in your mind?

You can email your comments, your questions to [email protected] or find us on any of the social platforms, Discord, Bluesky, Facebook, Instagram. We’re at KQED Forum. Or you can just give us a call now at 866-733-6786. That’s 866-733-6786.

We were just talking there about the special election in 1987. Pelosi outspent the other 13 candidates combined, and she invested more than $200,000 of her own money. She drew on political action committee money, and she argued that raising funds actually offered her political independence. Let’s hear a clip.

Nancy Pelosi: Corporate money goes to the Republicans. That’s just the way it is. I mean, I’d probably raise billions of dollars, a couple billion dollars, if it’s not in favor of corporate America, you can just imagine, and certainly not of Wall Street.

I completely, totally disagree that the Democratic Party is dominated by corporate money. It isn’t. And certainly the Democrats vote for gun violence prevention. The Republicans do not. The Democrats vote for protecting the environment. The other people are in the pocket of the fossil fuel industry, as well as the gun industry.

So it is a big difference, but we haven’t made that clear. And every poll shows, oh, they think we’re both sort of the same.

Lesley McClurg: Susan, does that pretty much sum it up, or did her perspective on political money ever shift?

Susan Page: You know, political money has been one of the sources of her power from the start. And of course, even before she was even a candidate, she was a considerably adept fundraiser, including for the Senate campaign committee. And so that is something she has never apologized for, raising money.

She’s skilled at raising money from big donors. It was a new generation of politicians that demonstrated how, in an age of social media, you could do that with small donors, Bernie Sanders being a good example of that. But this was a source of Pelosi’s power.

Let’s see if I could just say one more thing that you had asked Scott about why, despite her history in politics, including her family history, she had said she never considered running until Sala Burton suggested it in 1987.

And I would say one reason is that she was a member of the Silent Generation, born in 1940, toward the end of the Silent Generation. No expectation that women would run for office.

Her father, the mayor of Baltimore, wanted his sons to run for mayor, but it never occurred to either him or his daughter that she might be a candidate for office. So in that way, she really reflects such big changes, such huge shifts in the American political system.

Lesley McClurg: David writes, “If the Democrats had their act together, we would have elected Nancy Pelosi as president of the USA.”

Let’s go back and just wrap up that 1987 race. Obviously, she won. How did she win, Scott? And how did the gay activists at the time take the loss of Britt?

Scott Shafer: Well, she had a great campaign team. The late Clint Reilly managed it. Marshall Ganz, who was a very skilled organizer, has a history with the United Farm Workers, was part of it.

And they divided up the city very strategically into groups. They sent separate mailers to different communities. They even quietly slipped some messages to Republican voters. And they knew that the preponderance of the gay vote was going to go to Harry Britt. So they had to figure out how do they piece together a majority from the rest of the city, which they did. But not by a lot.

And, you know, the gay community was skeptical of her, but when she won the primary, there would then be a runoff in June. But in between the primary and the general in June, she met with gay activists, and not just, you know, as we say, the expensive-sweater crowd, but, you know, really some of ACT UP, some of the more radical members of the community.

And I don’t know if they were won over, but I think they were impressed by that first meeting. We have some people like Tom Ammiano in the podcast in that first episode saying that tears were shed by her as she talked with them about what their needs were in the middle of this epidemic.

So I think it took a while, but certainly once that first term in office, the very first thing she did when she was sworn in, the first speech she gave on the House floor, mentioned getting more funding for AIDS.

Lesley McClurg: Let’s go ahead and hear a clip from there.

Nancy Pelosi: For peace, for environmental protection, for equal rights, for rights of individual freedom. And now we must take the leadership, of course, in the crisis of AIDS. And I look forward to working with you on that.

Lesley McClurg: Susan, how big a deal was it that she brought up AIDS there?

Susan Page: You know, it’s easy to forget the stigma around AIDS at that point. So 1987, it was not until 1987 that President Reagan gave his first speech about AIDS, even though the disease had emerged six years earlier.

And when Pelosi came here and gave her first speech on the House floor after being sworn in and talked about AIDS, it was a time when there were only a handful of members of Congress willing to say the word.

And in that way, that is the early attention she got here. A freshman member of Congress of the House, big deal in Washington. I mean, not a big deal in Washington, one who was willing to tackle an issue that most of them avoided, that was kind of a big deal.

Lesley McClurg: Russ writes, “Nancy Pelosi is an amazing woman worthy of respect and a career that merits celebration. But let’s not anoint her as a saint. For example, a strong argument could be made that when she defended her heavy investments in tech companies, including Tesla and Apple, even as she presided as Speaker of the House and controlled legislation that affected those communities, she was normalizing corruption and paving the way for the unbridled corruption of Donald Trump.”

Do you agree with that critique, Susan?

Susan Page: I think that’s definitely a point of vulnerability for her. She resisted the idea of limits on stock sales by members of Congress and their family at a time that the need for that became more and more apparent by what we saw some members of Congress do.

Lesley McClurg: The second episode of the series focuses on Baltimore’s Little Italy and her parents. That was Mayor Tommy D’Alessandro and Annunciata, or Big Nancy, her mom was named.

And Susan, you spoke with Rahm Emanuel and he told you that she is 99% D’Alessandro and 1% Pelosi. Excuse me, that should have said — I should have — that was Scott. Scott said that, my bad there.

Scott Shafer: He might have said it’s Susan also.

Lesley McClurg: How would you say her parents, these characters, influenced her career in that statement there, you know, 99% D’Alessandro?

Scott Shafer: Yeah, I mean, it was the family business, you know, hanging out with her mother, Big Nancy. You know, and watching her. Susan Page wrote about this, and I can’t recommend her book too much, Madam Speaker, terrific. It was super helpful to us in putting the podcast together. It’s a great read with some amazing stories.

But, you know, she talked, Susan, in her book about the favor file, which was basically keeping track of what have you done for constituents? What do they owe you? You know, and then we got election time. Okay, remember that time we, you know, got your, you know, brother-in-law into the hospital or whatever it might be.

And so that, you know, management of the favor file was really critical. And she learned the importance of loyalty. You know, you got to dance with the one that brought you.

And so I think she just really — and just bare-knuckles political style. I mean, her father was involved. There had been a number of kind of like — I don’t want to say scandals, but there were some questionable issues around the way he ran the city on occasion. Susan can tell you more about that, but, you know, I think that is where she learned the nuts and bolts of constituent services, winning, and counting votes.

Lesley McClurg: She really knew how to play the game is what I’m hearing you say.

Scott Shafer: Yeah, I mean, it wasn’t a game, you know, it was serious business and getting re-elected time and time again. Her brother also became mayor of Baltimore. So, you know, it was, you know, was like, you know, some kids are out playing baseball. She was out playing politics.

Lesley McClurg: Kevin in San Francisco writes, “I met Nancy Pelosi last weekend at Swenson’s Ice Cream, and I took the opportunity to tell her I am the grandson of a Holocaust survivor and I’m not satisfied with her response to Israel’s attacks on Gaza. I asked how she felt about the issue as a grandparent. She didn’t give me a very satisfying answer and I was eventually cut off by her security detail.”

Susan, was that a big critique of hers, how she handled the Middle East?

Susan Page: Well, I do not think that’s been the focus of a lot of attention when you think about the big things that Pelosi has done. This is an issue that’s become, of course, enormously controversial now, given Israel’s actions against Gaza.

So I do think — here’s one thing I think is interesting. I think it’s interesting that a former Speaker of the House, number one, is going out for ice cream. I can guarantee you she got chocolate.

Number two, was willing to engage with someone who was giving her — challenging her, even if he eventually got cut off by security detail. That is, like, reasonably unusual these days.

And I think one source of Pelosi’s strength, and Scott would know this better than I, was the fact that she kept pretty grounded in her district and she was back there all the time, even though it meant those cross-country flights.

Scott Shafer: Yeah, I would totally agree with that. You know, she was in the district all the time, cutting ribbons, going to town hall meetings, funerals, whatever it might be. She was very visible.

And, you know, Kevin McCarthy, not so much, you know, when he was Speaker. You know, it is a schlep, you know, to fly all the way back out to the district. But even some members of Congress on the East Coast, they get kind of comfortable in their seats, like Joe Crowley did when he was running for re-election and AOC beat him because he was never in the district.

And so Pelosi learned the importance of being visible, making sure you’re present when you need to be so people remember you.

Lesley McClurg: Hit the pavement.

Carol writes, “You obviously went so deep on Nancy Pelosi. What surprised you most about her?” This is for Susan.

Susan Page: Ah, uh, you know, she’s, uh, she — here’s, here’s what struck me. I’ve covered Washington for a long time. I was in Washington when she arrived. Uh, I have covered 12 presidential elections.

Nancy Pelosi is the person I’ve — who is the most comfortable with power. She is the more comfortable with how to amass power. And once you have it, how to keep it. And once you’ve kept it, how to use it. And that is… quite remarkable.

So in some ways, when, you know, everyone says first woman Speaker of the House, that’s certainly true. She was, in fact, one of the most effective congressional leaders in the history of the United States, male or female.

Lesley McClurg: Scott, Pelosi announced her bid for Democratic whip in 2001. Just for those who might not follow politics, what is a whip and why did Pelosi want that specific job?

Scott Shafer: Well, it was the next leadership position available on the rung. You know, it goes whip, you know, majority leader, Speaker or minority leader, Speaker. And so that was the position that was open.

And, you know, at that time, there were a lot of men there. All the leadership was men up to that point. And there were people like Steny Hoyer, who was from Maryland, who thought it was kind of his turn. Others agreed it was his turn, and so she said, “No, I’m going to run. I’m gonna break into the line,” basically.

“I’m not going to wait around. I’ve paid my dues.” They kept saying, “Well, you have to pay your dues.” She said, “I paid my dues,” you know, from before I got into Congress. Raising money to help elect Democrats to the Senate and being chair of the Democratic Party in California.

So, you know, she really wasn’t — she saw that the people who were in charge didn’t have a plan to win. You know, she had seen them lose the House for the first time in 40 years in 1994, and then ’96, ’98, and then 2000. They kept losing, you know, and so she said, “Look, we’ve got to win here. And so I’ve got a plan.”

Lesley McClurg: Let’s hear a clip there where she was quite impatient during that time.

Nancy Pelosi: ’94, ’96, ’98. I was like, there’s no plan to win. It was more of an attitude thing, like the pendulum will swing, but I didn’t see really a decision to have it be a wrecking ball, not a pendulum, a wrecking ball.

You decide to win, and then you make every decision in favor of winning. Quite frankly, I’m really tired of losing.

Lesley McClurg: Susan, how was her appetite for that kind of confrontation? How was it viewed?

Susan Page: You know, Republicans came to fear her. I can tell you Democrats came to fear her, too, during that early whip race. She was not welcomed to run. Congress was overwhelmingly male, pretty staid in terms of climbing the ladder of leadership.

And she just, in the end, ignored them and went and waged a race and won the race on the basis of the size of the California delegation, and that was a big asset. Her support among some of the women who were serving in Congress and the fact that she could raise money. And she turned that into winning the whip race.

And with the whip race, that set her on the path that led her to eventually be Speaker. It set Democrats on the pathway that enabled them to regain a majority.

Scott Shafer: You know, one thing I would add to that, everything Susan just said is absolutely true. The other kind of ace in the hole that she had, the secret sauce or secret weapon, was a congressman from Pennsylvania named Jack Murtha, very popular, pretty conservative, his sort of coal-country representative.

He was for her. And I think that stunned — that sent a signal to all of these male, longtime members of Congress, like, oh, she’s serious. I mean, she’s got Murtha.

Murtha actually helped run the campaign for whip for her. And it was just, you know, it was an indication of her ability to really work with diverse members of the Democratic Party. You know, they didn’t agree on everything, which he ended up being very helpful to her later when, you know, or actually before that, on the Presidio, when the base closed and turning it into a park and nonprofits and that kind of thing.

So they knew each other. And she really — he really respected her. And, you know, he saw her focus on winning. And so he went with her.

Lesley McClurg: Anne Marie writes, “Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi is a rare, precious gem. Not only is she consistently gracious, but she is effective in accomplishing things for the people. I met her over 30 years ago as another human being. When I met, she warmly remembers me and my family to this day. Stellar human. What a blessing to live in San Francisco during her lifetime.”

Christopher writes, “Nancy Pelosi is popular among liberals, but she supported every single war and every military spending increase. This undermined the domestic agenda. She also killed the Green New Deal and fought against Medicare for All.”

What do you think? We would love to hear from listeners. We’d love to know maybe a favorite memory, your critiques or your praise for Nancy Pelosi. What do you think her legacy will be? Do you think the Democratic Party is ready to go on without her?

You can email your comments, your questions to [email protected]. You can find us on Discord, on Bluesky, on Facebook, on Instagram, or at KQED Forum. Or you can just give us a call right now at 866-733-6786. 866-733-6786.

Susan, she challenged Steny Hoyer and she broke traditional seniority lines when she did that. Talk about that moment and how did Democrats respond to that?

Susan Page: And, Lesley, if I could just make the point that there’s one inaccuracy in the comment that you just read about Nancy Pelosi’s record on war. Lots of things to criticize about Pelosi, no question. That’s certainly fair game.

But Nancy Pelosi supported the war in Afghanistan. She opposed the war on Iraq from the start. She was the highest-ranking Democratic official in Congress to oppose the invasion of Iraq when it began. She called that one the biggest mistake made in the history of the United States, although she said that before President Trump was president. I don’t know if she would amend that statement now.

But she served — she was very proud of having served on the Intelligence Committee because she said it gave her insights into what was actually going on, on things like the lead-up to the war in Iraq. And on that, she did take a stand.

Now with Steny Hoyer, I would say that if you talk to Steny Hoyer today, some of the wounds from that whip race remain with both of them. You know, that was the kind of race that the people involved on both sides will never forget.

Lesley McClurg: We are talking about the legacy of Nancy Pelosi as she approaches retirement after the 2026 midterm elections. Let’s sneak in a really quick call. You gotta be quick, Stuart.

Stuart: Hi. I’m just feeling really nostalgic because so many milestones in my life are connected to this chapter in Nancy Pelosi’s career.

I met my husband at an election house party for Harry Britt for Congress in 1987. So obviously we were Harry Britt supporters, but Nancy won us over with that first speech on the floor of the House when she talked about HIV/AIDS.

Our key aide, Steve Morin, originally an opponent in that race, but he became a key staffer and together they championed the Ryan White CARE Act, which made all the difference in HIV/AIDS funding in this country. Steve later became my boss at UCSF.

I’m really going to miss Nancy being in Congress, though, because every time I’ve heard she’s been there 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, I know I have an anniversary coming up with my husband. We’ve made it 39 years together — my husband and Nancy and I.

Lesley McClurg: Congratulations, Stuart. That is so beautiful. Really, congratulations.

We’ll be right back after this break. Stay with us.

Welcome back to Forum. We are talking about Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her legacy after four decades representing San Francisco.

I want to bring Padmini Raghunath into the conversation. She is the series editor for the podcast that we’re talking about called The Speaker. This is what Scott Shafer and her worked on together. Scott Shafer is also joining us. He’s senior politics correspondent here at KQED. And we’re also joined by Susan Page. She is Washington bureau chief for USA Today, and author of Madam Speaker: Nancy Pelosi and the Lessons of Power.

Padmini, the last few episodes of this series, they’re not actually out yet. Just number two is out today.

Padmini Raghunath: Number one and two are out.

Lesley McClurg: This third episode is going to be about the Affordable Care Act. Why did you devote a whole episode to that specifically?

Padmini Raghunath: Thanks so much for having me on, first of all. And I also wanted to mention, it wasn’t just the two of us. We also have a brilliant producer named Ariella Markowitz, who we couldn’t have done this without, obviously. Shout-out to Ariella. And a whole team behind us also.

But, yeah, I mean, we only had five episodes. And it was kind of a big move to devote a whole episode to the passage of the Affordable Care Act. And of course, aside from it being kind of Pelosi’s achievement, her legacy, it’s also, to me as an editor, kind of a really interesting sausage-making moment, if that makes sense.

So the first two episodes are really devoted to her accumulating power, kicking down the doors, as we’ve been talking about. And this third episode is this moment where, okay, now you’re here. What does it actually take to get a bill like that passed?

And, you know, it’s kind of interesting to work on something historical because, you know, we’re always looking for tension, having people sitting on the edge of their seats. But we, I feel like, kind of maybe achieved that just by going beat by beat. You know, how do you have to, like, bob and weave through D.C. politics, basically, to get something like this passed?

And then, of course, I mean, the Affordable Care Act ended up becoming this sort of lightning rod for controversy and arguably the Tea Party movement and, you know, all sorts of sort of effects, run-on effects, that we’re still feeling today. And so it was also important to kind of situate that, I think, to help understand our current moment.

Lesley McClurg: To talk about those right-wing movements, but before we move on from the ACA, Scott, do you think that Pelosi had to really compromise on her own values to get it across the line?

Scott Shafer: She would say no. You know, the Affordable Care Act, first of all, the president and Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod, they weren’t even sure that now was the time. This is like in the middle of the mortgage meltdown, and, you know, the economy was not doing well, was just maybe beginning to recover.

And so getting this thing through Congress was very difficult. It was a huge bill, a huge change. And of course, the obstacle was the Senate.

You know, the Democrats, if you can believe it, at that time had 60 votes in the Senate, which was a filibuster-proof majority. But then Ted Kennedy died. And so they went down to 59. They temporarily had 60. But they also had Joe Lieberman, who was one of the Democrats from Connecticut, which is the home to a lot of insurance companies.

And he would not vote for the public option, which is something that Pelosi and her caucus really wanted as a separate option for people to get on the marketplace that would compete with insurance plans out there, would be subsidized by the government. And, you know, thinking was it would drive down price, would provide competition.

The Senate version did not have that. And Pelosi was just a pragmatist, like, look, we’re stuck with this Senate bill because, you know, we just have to amend it. We have to fix it to make it more palatable to us.

And there were a lot of compromises in that. You know, I think some people, you know, some earlier caller or a listener commented on the Green New Deal. You know, Pelosi, who dismissed that as the Green New Dream or something, you know, she’s like all about what can you get done? What can we get?

And she knew what she could get enough votes for in the Senate, what she could get votes for enough in the House. Abortion, you know, navigating that was a big issue. So, you know, she, she did everything she could to get the best bill possible from a Democratic point of view.

And that, you know, sausage-making that Padmini alluded to, that’s politics, you know.

Lesley McClurg: Let’s hear from a caller, Lois in Piedmont. You’re on the air.

Lois: And, uh, I’m delighted to say that when I was — I’m an Emerge alum, which is a Democratic training program for pro-choice women — and our executive director, Kimberly Ellis, at the time, we were at the state convention in Southern California and she invited Nancy Pelosi to be our woman to talk to us about leadership and politics.

And I just remember she had just passed the — she, and I call it she, the Affordable Care Act — and she’s talking to me privately, she’s looking me in the face, and I was just like so inspired by that, to a woman leader who, of course, represents the Bay Area.

And I was, at the time, campaigning to be a trustee for the County Board of Education in Alameda County, and I was just so inspired by her.

And then recently, I got to see her when Belva Davis was acknowledged. And I said, you know, “Can you keep working?” And she said, “No. Enjoy your time,” and I hope I can eat her for ice cream as well.

Lesley McClurg: I hope you get to meet her for ice cream as well, Lois. Let’s stay with the phones. Shannon in San Francisco, you’re on the air.

Shannon: Hi. Yeah. Um, so I was born and raised in San Francisco. I’m a U.S. Navy service-connected disabled veteran, and I worked for a nonprofit called Swords to Plowshares.

And I have to admit that Nancy Pelosi has been one of the most ardent supporters of veterans, veterans issues, veterans benefits, and the Department of Veterans Affairs.

And she’s one of those few people — not woman, not man, just few people — who never served, never was in the military, and has always been there for this population more so than, like, John McCain or Bob Dole, who actually were in the military.

And regardless of all her faults, I have to give it to her for being there for people like myself. That’s really about it.

Lesley McClurg: Yeah, I’m so glad that you had her support, Scott. It sounds like you want to —

Scott Shafer: Yeah, I mean, I wish I had a dollar for every press release I got where Nancy Pelosi was going to be at Swords to Plowshares doing something. She was there an awful lot.

But, you know, kind of in reference to that earlier comment from a listener that she supported every war. And as Susan correctly pointed out, she voted against the Iraq war, but she refused to cut funding for the troops once they were there.

She didn’t like the war. She was highly critical of President Bush over that. And it was part of their platform for winning back the majority in 2006.

But she’s also very patriotic. I think that’s maybe something people don’t know about Nancy Pelosi. Her favorite holiday, according to her, is Memorial Day. She loves to acknowledge the role of veterans and people who serve this country.

And people don’t necessarily identify the liberal Democrat from San Francisco in that way. But she is very much patriotic. We haven’t talked about her faith. She’s very religious. And so that’s very much a part of who she is.

Lesley McClurg: Susan, we were just talking before this little thread. We were talking about the rise of the Tea Party movement, of these right-wing movements that came out of the passage of the ACA. This is Trump. This is MAGA. How did Pelosi respond when these right-wing movements began to grow?

Susan Page: They began to grow and, of course, they targeted her. She became a great fundraising tool for some of these farther-right groups that began to grow.

I think she found them flummoxing because Pelosi’s agenda was to get some stuff done and agree with what she wanted to get done or not, but that was what she wanted to do.

And the idea that there were these people running for office at the other end of the political spectrum who were getting elected with the promise that the government would not do things and would peel back on things it was already doing was something I think she found very hard to understand.

Lesley McClurg: Barbara writes, “I loved it when Nancy Pelosi ripped up Trump’s State of the Union speech in front of everyone during his first administration.”

Scott, we have a clip of you asking Speaker Pelosi about why she went forward with the impeachment of Trump. This is the first time when she knew it was going to fail in the Senate. Let’s hear that clip.

Scott Shafer: Why did you think it was important to go ahead and really start a process that you knew ultimately you would not?

Nancy Pelosi: We did succeed. We impeached him twice. But you think that we should be guided by what the Senate might do? You think that the president has committed impeachable offenses of the highest magnitude and we shouldn’t do that because we don’t know what some senators are going to do? No.

Scott Shafer: You can hear the contempt in her voice.

Lesley McClurg: In her voice. She is not a fan of the Senate, I can tell you that. How did it feel to be on the other end of that pushback in that?

Scott Shafer: Oh, that was nothing. I mean, you know, that was fairly mild. I mean, I, you know, and that’s, that’s just Pelosi. You know, she, she’s really — she has a position. She, she will, you know, sort of undercut the premise of your question if she doesn’t like it.

And, you know, she’s, she is very focused on the House. The House’s responsibility is, you know, oversight, and they have the power to impeach. And that’s what they did.

And she wasn’t about looking down the road to see whether it would pass the Senate, which I’m sure she knew it wouldn’t. But she wanted to go, you know, maybe go down in history as having, quote-unquote, “done the right thing,” to try to hold the president accountable when he had committed — that was the phone call with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, you know, kind of a quid pro quo, military aid for investigating Hunter Biden and Joe Biden.

And so, you know, she just saw that as her role. That one was — that one was a relatively mild brushback.

Susan Page: You know, and the fact is, she had pushed back on impeachment for a long time. There was a lot of energy in the Democratic caucus to impeach Trump that she held back on because she thought that politically it was not going to succeed and that was going to carry some costs.

But once that phone call came out, and then the second time around, after the January 6 riot, she felt, I think, she didn’t have any choice.

Lesley McClurg: Let’s go back to the phones. Val in San Francisco, you’re on the air.

Val: Hi, I’m a San Franciscan, born and raised, and I’m about the same age as Nancy Pelosi, but maybe a little younger.

I remember her from so long ago, and in the ’80s and ’90s there was — I was very ill, and I needed medical care. And I got it because Nancy Pelosi had a childhood health care initiative for children, and I was — and a lot of other people were able to get care because of that.

Lesley McClurg: Beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing that story.

Scott Shafer: Yeah, you know, that reminds me of another story that was in our first episode. Mike Schriver, who supported Harry Britt in that first campaign, but got to know Pelosi and went to her office with a friend who needed to get onto some experimental drug treatment trial because he had AIDS.

And she also helped him. Mike Schriver, and he has some very poignant stories about her. I still am in touch with him to this day, and he really credits Nancy Pelosi and the Ryan White CARE Act for his being alive.

Lesley McClurg: As you heard there, we are talking about the legacy of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, four decades representing San Francisco. Lesley McClurg, I’m sitting in today for Mina Kim, and you are listening to Forum.

We have lots of comments coming in here.

Nancy writes, “My favorite Pelosi moment is her standing up to the San Francisco Archbishop’s announcement that she was prohibited from receiving Holy Communion. She was dignified, and he looked like a foolish misogynist.”

Let’s see, Roger writes, “Here lies the difference between corporate liberals and the progressive culture that was snuffed out of San Francisco and the neighborhoods like the Mission that were intentionally knocked down and replaced like SoMa and the North Mission. Pelosi and Feinstein’s massive corporate money led that battle.”

Is that true, Scott?

Scott Shafer: Which part of that? I mean, fair, fair. Yeah, I mean, she believes — she talks all the time about Citizens United, the Supreme Court decision that allowed an influx, a huge influx of money.

But she also has raised a boatload of money, one of the most prolific fundraisers in congressional history. And there are people who don’t like some of the places she’s gotten money from.

But I think her point is, look, we’re not going to tie one hand behind our backs just because we don’t have all the money. We’re not going to be disadvantaged. We can try to change the system, but this is the system. And we’re going to have to play in that arena.

Lesley McClurg: Susan, big question for you here. I mean, Pelosi is going to be gone by the first of the year. Where does the Democratic Party leadership go from here?

Susan Page: That is a big question, and that is not determined because there is a division in the Democratic Party now between the energy of some of these very progressive voices that have succeeded in Democratic primaries from Michigan to Maine, and of course in California as well, and more moderate Democrats, more centrist Democrats who worry that the Democrats will blow what looks like a nicely set table for the 2028 presidential election if they nominate someone too far left to appeal in some of the more conservative heartland states.

This is — we are at the beginning of a war over the direction of the Democrats. And this is a war that will be waged without Nancy Pelosi on the front lines.

Lesley McClurg: But, Padmini, what else is in the series? What are you guys gonna tackle?

Padmini Raghunath: In these final episodes. So I mentioned that our third episode, which is coming out next Wednesday, is about the Affordable Care Act and sort of the seeds of the Tea Party movement.

And of course, as history comes closer to us, it starts to feel like a pointillist painting or something. It’s harder to see it. And so we just kind of had to be honest about that. And hearing some of the criticisms also coming in today, we weren’t afraid to shy away from that either.

So the fourth episode addresses something that our producer, Ariella, heard a lot when she went and did Vox in D.C., which was — we are addressing the ban on stock trading in the fourth episode, and these sort of internal divisions that Susan Page just described, in addition to the impeachment in episode four and January 6th, which stacked episode.

Lesley McClurg: Sounds good. Lots of coverage.

Padmini Raghunath: And then the fifth episode is really, um, I would say kind of — it’s about you, Scott, a little bit.

Scott Shafer: You know, I mean, you know, our careers in some ways overlapped. I very well — I mean, not to compare myself or my legacy to hers, but, you know, I’ve seen that first campaign and so you’re kind of putting it into context.

We’re now involved in a very vigorous election to replace her. You know, she and I kind of had a contentious back-and-forth about that. And so it’s a reflection, I think, of, you know, her legacy, how she got there, where she’s leaving the Democratic Party, which, as Susan Page just said, is kind of in a bit of a civil war right now, her role in that.

I mean, she’s definitely been concerned about, you know, some of the nominees in the Democratic Party, like, you know, Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan. And so we’re going to find out in November, you know, how does a more progressive candidate fare in a place like Michigan?

So some of those questions about 2028 are going to maybe not resolve, but we’ll have more data points. And so the fifth episode talks a little bit about some of those things as well.

Padmini Raghunath: I would just jump in and add really quickly. I think it’s also about certainty versus uncertainty, like the role of a politician versus the role of a journalist, which, you know, for her to have accomplished what she did, she had to be certain that it was going to happen, even if maybe she had her private doubts. That’s just what she had to do and project.

And our job is to ask questions about that. So, that’s maybe a little tease.

Scott Shafer: And analyze how things worked out.

Lesley McClurg: Given that we are, though, on the precipice of this election, what’s happening? Who’s running? Give us a little summary of who’s up for her seat.

Scott Shafer: Yeah. So the primary was interesting. There were three candidates, including Shoykat Chakrabarti, who was AOC’s chief of staff. And right before the primary, Pelosi endorsed Connie Chan, in part, I think, because she really wanted to make sure Chakrabarti wasn’t there. She was one of many people who got him fired, basically, from his job in Congress.

And so she succeeded and, you know, Chan did very well. So now it’s Chan versus Scott Wiener, state senator from San Francisco, openly gay. He finished first in the primary by quite a few points.

But Pelosi has really put her foot on the pedal. She’s helping Connie Chan with fundraising, boosting her campaign in many, many ways. She’s even calling some of Scott Wiener’s endorsers, trying to get them to change their mind, Dolores Huerta in particular.

And so it’s not so much a generational question, I think, because they’re — Chan’s a little younger than Wiener, but they’re both under 60.

But I think it’s going to be really about who can get things done. What kind of person do you want to follow in the footsteps of Nancy Pelosi, who has been a legendary representative for San Francisco for the past four decades? What are the qualities you’re looking for? What are qualities Democrats feel are needed right now?

Lesley McClurg: Big shoes to fill there.

You just heard from Scott Shafer again. His new podcast’s second episode dropped today, three more to come. The title is The Speaker. His producer — or editor, I should say — is Padmini Raghunath. She is also obviously involved in that, The Speaker. And Susan Page also joined us, Washington Bureau Chief for USA Today.

Thanks so much for listening. Have a great day.

Announcer: Funds for the production of Forum are provided by the Generosity Family Fund and the members of KQED.