This is a special presentation from Civic Media.
Civic Media is proud to be a part of the Captime's idea fest in Madison.
Tonight's broadcast is a live one-on-one discussion with Nancy Pelosi,
the first female speaker of the house.
We'll hear what she thinks about the state of politics and the presidential election.
Now, live to the Captime's idea fest in Madison.
That's a little plan.
That brainstorming was many months before release of the speaker's great new book titled
The Art of Power.
My story as America's first woman speaker of the house.
And long before the summer of intense notoriety for her role about the
consent of Vice President Kamala Harris to the presidential nomination.
I was able to interview speaker Pelosi for my column last month and we talked about
many things including her relationships through time with some of the Wisconsin's most
famous political names.
We're lucky to have his moderator tonight an award-winning national political
journalist who has been who has known the speaker for decades.
Karen Tamalti is a Washington Post associate editor and an economist who writes
about national politics for the Washington Post and importantly has grandchildren in
Madison.
So that's it.
I'm just going to go off my notes here a second and thank David Marinus who seems to
have brought half of the Washington Post's newsroom to Madison and thank you David.
The former editor Marty Barron in the first year, I'll never forget that.
Karen has degrees from University of Texas at Austin and the Harvard Business School
Texas grad.
Before joining the Post in 2010 she worked for the Time Magazine before that for the
Los Angeles Times and it's an honor to have her here tonight.
I want to take a minute to sincerely thank our sponsors and partners without
whom this pretty cool week I think wouldn't be possible.
Epic Systems, Exact Sciences, Health X Ventures, UW Health, the Carbon Cancer Center,
Madison Gatson Electric, the Ascendium Education Group, and the University of
Wisconsin-Madison.
Co-sponsors include the University Research Park, the Century House,
Overture Center for the Arts, the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation,
the Wisconsin Historical Society, the Madison Community Foundation,
Cargo Coffee, the Opholite School of Public Affairs, Madison College,
Leopold's Book Bar Cafe, and the Forward Theatre Company.
Thank you.
We really do very much appreciate them.
Our partners include Hinckley Productions, Civic Media, which is a broadcasting
of this event tonight on the stations across the state.
I believe there are 20 stations across the state.
The Wisconsin State Journal and Madison.com.
One more note which is repeated from my earlier session, so forgive me.
Our host, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is committed to freedom of speech
and freedom of expression as an essential part of their education mission.
It is our expectation that you will allow the speaker's presentation to occur without
disruption.
Any disruptions to the event will be handled swiftly by security.
So with that, I'd like to hand it over to the aforementioned Ben Wickler to take the introduction from here.
Thank you.
Thanks for being with us.
Thank you, Madison.
Could we give another round of applause to Paul Fandland and to the whole team?
If you're at IDFSD at the Capitol Times, here in Shannon Hall, what a gift to our community this institution is.
I'm profoundly humbled and honored to be able to introduce tonight's guest of honor.
And especially to do it in this setting, in this venue, I grew up coming to talks here as a kid.
Growing up in Madison, I had a dream opportunity to serve on the Capitol Times Student Editorial Board when I was 12,
which I didn't know that not every newspaper has a Student Editorial Board, but the Capitol Times did.
This is a place where getting involved in politics and public life makes people more idealistic, not less.
And that's different from a lot of politics in a lot of places.
But what I want to speak to tonight in introducing our guest is the fact that Speaker Emerida Pelosi, twice speaker Pelosi,
path-breaking world-changing speaker Pelosi, is a leader who makes the people around her more idealistic,
to believe in the power of democracy, to make people believe in their own capacity to create change,
at the same time as she wields the art of power at a level that our country has never seen.
She grew up seeing what this was like. Her father was the mayor of Baltimore and former Congressman.
She moved to California. She had five children. She served as the State Party Chair in California.
And then when her children had grown, she ran for Congress, and then ran for leadership, became the Speaker in 2007,
became the Speaker again in 2017, and the Speaker again in 2019.
And it's step after step after step has faced some of the most frightening and impossible crucibles in American politics,
faced a Republican Party that was bent on destroying our democracy and undermining the fundamental idea of America at so many steps,
and a Democratic Party that I can say, not always the easiest to deal with.
And I, like so many of us, saw from afar her amazing work.
And then I got to move to Washington, D.C., my wife worked in the United States Senate.
We had a close friend who was working for Speaker Pelosi in the House.
And I remember asking her once, how is it that she never loses a vote?
How is it that she's able to figure out a way to pass all the bills through, to count the bills,
so perfectly, to bring people around who are thinking in so many different directions?
And our friend who was watching her in awe, often in close quarters, in professional setting,
said the thing about Speaker Pelosi is that she calls people to act on their values.
She said she connects, she understands people, she knows what's happening in their lives.
I came to have the enormous luck of getting to work with her directly, and she would ask first about how my kids are doing.
She asked the same thing when I saw her tonight. She would ask to see baby pictures.
And then she would know people's why.
She always tells people, know your why, know why you're doing this.
Because if you know your fundamental to your core, the values that are propelling you to do this work,
then you can withstand the heat and the attacks and the pressure and the lies.
Because you can stand firm on the ground of your values.
And her genius, the genius of her leadership, is identifying the values that make people ready to go through anything,
to make the change that has to happen.
We might not be a democracy today in the United States if it wasn't for Speaker Pelosi.
We know to a certain that tens of millions of people would not have health care today if it wasn't for Speaker Pelosi.
We very well could not have ended two very long wars if it weren't for Speaker Pelosi's leadership.
I was very involved in the fight against the repeal of the Affordable Care Act.
And while people talk about John McCain and that moment he put his thumb down,
the only reason we got to that point is because somehow from the minority in the House,
Speaker Pelosi gummed up the works and stopped the Republicans from repealing the Affordable Care Act on day one.
They failed vote after vote, pulled votes off the floor.
Because she united Democrats in the country and divided the opposition.
Based on the fundamental value that every person deserves dignity and respect and health care in the United States of America.
She exercised that leadership.
Now you read and you see what she does on the national stage and national press in the halls of Congress and the White House.
What I didn't realize until I got to see it firsthand is that part of the magic of what she does is she engages the grassroots.
She believes in organizing down to her core.
When I was at move on or working against the repeal of the ACA, I got to join conference calls that she would have every week with grassroots organizations across the country.
And I don't know how she fit this in while leading Democrats in the House of Representatives and out negotiating the Republicans and Donald Trump.
She would often be eating ice cream during the calls.
She's a very Wisconsin approach to conference calls that we strongly approve of here in the dairy state.
And she would ask everyone to share what they were doing and she would appreciate them and she would tell them how much it mattered.
She would say like a mantra, you might hear it tonight, you have to own the ground.
You have to own the ground. You have to organize at the grassroots level to bring the pressure up from below.
That's an idea that is grounded in a respect for democracy and an understanding the art of power in a democracy that it all ultimately comes from people.
I decided in 2018 to move home to Madison and I told Speaker Pelosi about it and said it's the best place in the world to raise your kids.
I had three kids and my wife and I moved back across the country and I left Washington, D.C., it was involved in all these policy fights.
Speaker Pelosi never left our side here at every step in the long fight that we have had against the forces of authoritarianism in our state.
She's been raising money, she's been spreading the word, she's been joining conference calls with Democratic Party of Wisconsin organizers to fire up volunteers to call on all of us to own the ground.
And this year when everyone in this room has a superpower in the form of your ballot and your time and your dollars and your work to ensure that democracy survives.
Speaker Pelosi, as she is in every battleground state and every battleground house district across the country, she is with us here in our fight because she knows that our work is grounded in the same values that she has exemplified and called upon everyone else to exemplify throughout her career.
She calls on us to live up to the idea of democracy to be a country where everyone matters.
And that is a gift to us that we have to use.
So let's give a gigantic round of applause to Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Madison, you seem to have a few fans here.
So I do want to congratulate you on the book which came out five weeks ago.
It made it to number one in the New York Times list the first week and it's been living in that neighborhood ever since.
And if you have had even a minute to turn on a television here, you will know that you are in a swing state.
And we are today 50 days away from that election.
And here in Wisconsin, the ballots go out starting on Thursday.
So how are you feeling about this election, Madam Speaker?
Well, first, thank you, Karen.
What an honor it is for me to be here with each and every one of you.
It's such a treat for me to be interviewed, moderated by what that's probably a moderation voice of Karen Tamalti.
She is in her own right, the star, where they have any audience to hear her views on any subject.
But then I found out that she is grandchildren and Madison.
So, oh, Karen's coming.
How wonderful.
And I know the great magnet of grandchildren.
Thank you, Karen.
I'm honored that you were participating together here.
And again, to be in this historic location, I want to make sure I have all of this right.
Shannon Hall, Memorial Union of the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
The Capitol Times idea fest.
Hopefully we'll have some ideas to fest.
Thank you, Paul, Fanlund for your leadership.
And David Swiffle, he said, I could say Swiffle or Swiffle, for his starting all of this some decades ago.
I do want to say what a special honor it is for me.
That Mayor Doyle and his wife Jessica are here this evening because they...
Stand up, stand up, stand up.
I was here earlier with Peter Bark, a lumbar, who happens to win the House Club.
Where I got invited, Peter.
Here is what I'm happy as it even goes on to acknowledge others who are with us.
But first, I want to, again, thank you all for being here to hear Karen's question.
Did I notice that this was a swing state, man?
Came in, turned on the TV, won, come, reflect, or not.
Or if you don't need any other indication.
But Wisconsin is a great state.
You have sent great representation to the Congress of the United States.
Speaking from my own side of the aisle, we're just so proud, so very proud of your senator.
She's just remarkable.
You know what I'm talking about.
She started in the House, moved on to the Senate, and remarked the cons.
Mark McCann's district, we have...
And Milwaukee, we have...
There's a most remarkable congresswoman.
She's just wonderful.
But anyway, you know all of these people.
Nobody to me to say that.
It's really important for the country to make a decision in a few weeks, eight weeks,
and Wisconsin is the heartland of America.
And I want all of you to know your power in all of this, I think you do,
and to know your responsibility in all of this.
What we're trying to do is to have a campaign that brings people together.
We cannot become that which we are fighting.
We have to try to bring people together.
I have this pin, it's a flag pin, and on it says one country, one destiny, one country, one destiny.
And those are the words that were embroidered in Abraham Lincoln's coat the night that he passed away.
He had on that coat.
But that was his vision.
And that's what he did.
Bring our country together by winning the Civil War.
We have a challenge now, of course, of the divisions in our country.
But I'm here in Wisconsin because of your importance, not that it isn't pleasant to come here,
and I've been here many times.
But at this time, in particular, you will see so much focus, so much listening,
to you, learning from you about the vision you see for our country.
Now, I don't know in this historic hall where we're able to talk politics,
so I won't go there unless the question directs me there.
However, know your power.
Just win, baby.
Just win, baby.
So how confident are you that come election night?
The Democrats are going to have a good night, both for the White House and the House and the Senate.
Oh, we can't talk politics.
I was being civic-minded with flag and Lincoln.
Here's the thing.
And I say this with confidence and from firsthand experience.
For the good of our country, it is absolutely essential that how came Jeffries has the gavel on January 6th.
The day that Congress votes to certify the election to accept the result of the electoral college.
I say first hand because I had the gavel on January 6th, but more important than that,
we had the votes in the House to overcome the massive vote against for the Republican side of accepting those.
So in terms of that night, let's hope that we will know that night.
That's why I say let's win, but I always say let's win big, baby, so that it's conclusive.
But whatever it is, the result is one that we, as those who honor and uphold the Constitution of the United States, respect the results of the election of the American people.
We wish that everyone will share that view and that commitment to the Constitution.
I think, talking about, I take nothing for granted in politics.
This is a very close race.
I think Kamala Harris will win the overwhelmingly Kamala Harris and Tim Walls will win the popular vote in the country.
But that doesn't elect the president.
Our founders had a different idea about how that would work and we honor that Constitution.
So we have to, until we can change that, we have to make sure that she does what they do win, because so much is at stake.
This isn't an election that we would have against George W. Bush or Mitt Romney or Bob Dole, John McCain.
We have an election. We have an outcome. We go to work.
We try to find compromise and we work to the good of the people.
This is a different election. This is an election where not only the differences of opinion are on the ballot and that's legitimate.
That's a democracy. You have differences of opinion.
You fight it out as to the role of government and where you are on the spectrum from right to left.
That's who we are.
But when there's a question of the integrity of our elections, when there's a question of the sanctity of the ballot, when there's a question of the democracy,
in our country, that puts the election at a higher stake, one that we must win and win in a way that is unifying, respectful of all views,
whoever wins is President and Vice President of the United States, not of the Democratic Party or the Republican Party.
But also that recognizes the beauty of differences of opinion in our country.
And I would hope that at some point there are those who will take back the Republican Party.
It's a grand old party. It's done great things for America, provided great leadership to our country.
It has been hijacked in my view and I won't go into that unless you ask me, but there is a great deal at stake.
So let us try to, again, honoring the vision of our founders of this great country.
The sacrifice of our men and women in uniform who fight for our freedom again and again and democracy elsewhere.
And importantly, the aspirations of our children, we have to go forward in a way that preserves our democracy, supports and defends our constitution.
Again, we must win the election.
You know, you just look at the events of the past week.
And there's really not a lot to look at and find optimism that politics could ever return to something that even resembles normal.
I mean, we've had the Republican nominee and the Republican vice presidential nominee slandering legal Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio.
Yesterday, we had a second assassination attempt on former President Trump.
I mean, when you look at these events, when you hear sort of the no holds bar rhetoric, where do you find hope?
Well, I find hope in the American people because I believe in the goodness of the American people.
People say to me, where is hope? I say hope is where it always has been sitting right there between faith and charity.
When we believe in the goodness of our, the greatness of our country, we believe in the goodness, the charity and love of people, and therefore we have hope.
And that is, but the goodness of the American people is, and the young people in our country and their aspirations for something better and their willingness to act upon that gives me hope.
But I also have hope is owning the ground in a grassroots election and getting out your vote.
And I also have hope in a message that is unifying to America, not divisive or threatening, but progressive, bold, unifying.
Now, people say to me, well, it's not bold enough or something, I say, you know what?
What works in Wisconsin works in San Francisco? What works in San Francisco may not work in Wisconsin, and we must win Wisconsin.
We will win San Francisco.
So, nobody is, we have to have our common ground. We don't pull our bunch, we don't lessen our commitment, but we find our common ground.
And I say, my caucus, our diversity is our strength, but our unity is our power, and the power of our country is in agreeing to disagree, but in a way that is not dividing our country.
We've been taken down a terrible path by a certain person who for a short time occupied the White House, never to go there again.
I'm serious about that. It can never happen again.
Well, I would like to talk to you a little bit about your book, The Art of Power, although as I was reading it, I was thinking it could just have easily have been named the skill of power or the talent of power.
And it's not meant to be a memoir. You kind of hint at the end that that book may come someday, and I certainly hope it does.
But what people know about your story, you were the daughter of a congressman who became the mayor of Baltimore, five older brothers, baby of the family.
But people might hear that and assume that you always had figured you were going to grow up to be Nancy Pelosi, that this always felt like this was your destiny.
And I know we've talked about this before as the baby and the only girl in the family. Were those the expectations that you felt as a child?
No. No, I didn't feel that at all. I was a 50s teenagers, rock around the clock, Elvis Presley. Come on, forget politics. What was that?
Thank you for going back to my family history, which is always such a source of strength to me.
I was raised in Peter, you know, appreciate this. Peter Barker, we share our talent American heritage, grew up in the Italian American section of Baltimore, then literally in Baltimore, Maryland.
And in our family, we were devoutly Catholic, proud of our Italian American heritage, fiercely patriotic, and staunchly democratic.
Now, I say that separately because some of the other things we shared with many other families, but in those days being democratic and Republican wasn't what it has turned into like right now, it was you respected people for their interest in public service, whatever side of the aisle they were on.
But no, I had absolutely no interest whatsoever. In fact, I was a very shy person. I still am, but that's why I love to see some of these candidates go out there and just be so in the spotlight. And I think that's great. Now, so here's the thing.
I was able to go way to college, girls, Catholic college, 35 minutes from home. That was the extent of my freedom. That was beautiful. And I loved it, Trinity College, all men's Catholic college. Okay, Trinity College.
And then I read Paul and I had five children in six years and seven days as I remind my, as I remind my Archbishop who acts communicated me about anyway. That's his problem.
But in Washington, the Cardinals said the communion will not be withheld from anyone because of whatever thoughts they have about a woman's gratitude.
Anyway, so when you have five children that short period of time, you don't have time for anything. I mean, you just, you don't even have time to wash your face. This is it.
So when they're in school all day, which eventually comes, I always just said the best life and some of the worst days because you just, you just never finished working.
But nonetheless, when they were in school all day, then I started to volunteer in the Democratic Party. Then soon I became the chair of the party, but I never intended to run myself.
I loved working behind the scenes for candidates and the causes. Something like what Dan Wittard, isn't he just the best? Isn't he the best?
I'm such an admirer of his and as you should, I know you all are. I heard your reaction to him, but you should know he's received that way all over the country on this infrequent occasions when he leaves Wisconsin.
And he said to me one day in Washington, I'm going home to Wisconsin because I think it's the best place to raise a family. And here he is.
I don't know where he is, but he is somebody in any event.
So what bothered me was that my why? I'm a mom of five and one in five children in America goes to sleep hungry each night.
Lives in poverty goes to sleep. So that was my mission to be engaged in politics to prepare candidates, do the grassroots work, all the rest of that.
So in any case, that's what I did. Then they came to me and said, you love the issues, you love the policy, you should run for Congress.
The Congresswoman wanted to retire and she said, I would feel so much better if you would run, but I had never had one thought of running for Congress or anything.
I just wasn't who I was, I was shy. So anyway, that was then, but anyway.
So anyway, I go to my daughter, Alexandra. Some of you have heard this story because I tell it. It's the answer to this question.
We had four of them in college and one going into senior year and high school. And she was 16. She was young, going into senior years.
So Alexandra, mommy has been asked to run for Congress. I've never even given it a thought to do such a thing, but people are asking me to run and celebrate who is the Congresswoman really wants me to think about it.
And I said, I'd have to ask you. Now, here's what it is. I don't know if I even win, but if I run, and if I were to win, I'd be gone three nights a week, Monday through Thursday, something like that.
But if any answer is good, if you want me to stay, I'm happy to stay, but otherwise if you go on three nights a week.
Mother, now mind you, I ask mommy, mother, get a life. No, I'd never heard that. It's over 35 years ago. I'd never heard that.
Get a life. What teenage girl doesn't want her mother out of the house three nights a week.
So what housewife, house member, has speaker.
Except when you get to the house, there aren't a lot of women there. And there is a sort of real pecking order among the men who are running the place.
And at that point, the Democrats starting in the mid 90s were kind of wandering in the wilderness and couldn't win back a majority.
How open were the men who were running the place to your ideas for doing things differently?
Well, when I went to Congress, there were 23 women at a 435 people. I mean, 23 women, 11 Republicans and 12 Democrats.
Immediately being the former chair, this has to change. We have to make this different. We now have 94 Democratic women. They have like 30 something.
We still all need more. But nonetheless, at the same time, our caucus is 70% women, people of color, LGBTQ. That's a fabulous thing. Very well.
Going back to then, I loved my committee assignments, appropriations, intelligence, all that. And people came to me and said, you should run for leadership.
I'm not running for leadership. No, you should run for leadership. We have to change something. This has to, as I'm not running for leadership. So I didn't.
And then we lost in 94 and 96 and 98. And then I was like, I'm tired of losing. I know how to win elections.
So I decided that I would run for whip, which was the position had been come, become open because David Bonier, who was the whip, was then leaving to run for governor of Michigan.
So I said, I would run. So the men, see, I always thought we would have a woman president long before we'd ever have a woman in leadership in the Congress, because you're not talking glass ceiling here.
You're not talking serious marble seal. This is not. And so when I was running, they basically said, you know, we have a pecking order here. These men have been waiting a long time for a position to open up. And this one and that one and that.
That's what it is. There's a pecking order. I said, you know, and there's an election. And we've been waiting over 200 years. And so much for your pecking work. Then they would say things like, and these are people I love. I mean, they're just feeling nice. But, you know, so they just didn't know. So then they said, probably one of my personal favorites.
Who said she could run poor babies. And so then they said, oh, this is further babyhood. Then they said, okay, why don't you all just write down a piece of paper, some of the things that the women in Congress would like to see done that hasn't been done. And then we'll do them for you.
This was in this century. It's not that long ago. Well, we went from being, oh, interesting. But there were 23 to when my numbers grew. It was challenging. But then they were going to hold the line. But they were all lovely. They're my friends. I respect them. But it's just, it was just interesting. So then I want, I want to say it. I don't want you. And I think this holds for this election.
I don't want you voting for me because I'm a woman. And I don't want you voting against me because I'm a woman. I want you to listen to what I have to say about policy and politics and what we can do for the people. And, and I want. And then I, and then I, we won the Congress and I got the gavel after the gavel. It's a different world.
You know, a couple of weeks before you left the speakership, you had some reporters in for lunch, you had us in for lunch in the, it's a very famous room in the capital that used to be Sam Rayburns, what they called the Board of Education.
And Speaker Pelosi told us something that you could just hear all of our jaws drop. You told us that the first time you ever set foot in a democratic speaker's office was when you were the democratic speaker.
So that sort of tells you how closed the system really was for women.
Never been in there. And I had been in the Republican speaker's office because I was the democratic leader. So I would go to negotiate to his office, but never to the democratic speakers.
But it, they kept things in close. So, you know, but in any event, they were all reasonably fine after that.
Well, in, in this book, you go through a number of key moments that sort of marked your tenure as democratic leader, but there's one in particular I want to ask you about because I was in the chamber that day.
And that was the, and this was like the most amazing high wire act of legislating. I think any of us had ever seen, which was getting the affordable care act through the house.
And just, just so you can understand the degree of difficulty, the Senate, which had been kind of dragging their feet all along any way, had lost with the death of Senator Ted Kennedy their 60th vote that made their bill filibuster proof.
So the speaker had to pass the exact same bill that the Senate had passed, even though a lot of her members didn't like it, some of her members knew that that vote was going to potentially end their career.
I'm, I'm thinking, for instance of Tom Perry, hello, who you talk about in the book. And in what I now find a chilling omen of what happened on January 6th, the capital was surrounded by thousands and thousands of protesters on the day of the foot of a current.
Yes, yes, it's coming to the house vote. And she is having to pick these votes up one by one by one. And things outside the capital are so bad that well, maybe you should talk about what happened to John Lewis as he was just.
Well, as John Lewis was walking to the chamber that day through all the screaming protesters, people were spitting on him.
And he told Speaker Pelosi it was the worst thing he had seen since the Edmund Pettis bridge in Selma. It was the most anger and the worst treatment.
So that is the environment that you are trying to get this done.
Well, the thing is that when Senator Kennedy passed away and we lost the 60 votes, the press said to me, you're dead.
It's a word to that effect, but it's over for you. I said, no, this is an opportunity, a challenge of a generation.
For 100 years, presidents have tried Teddy Roosevelt and Franklin Roosevelt and Truman and all had been trying until we had Medicare with Lyndon Johnson.
That was one of the first breakthroughs. And when he signed it, he signed it in Independence, Missouri, so president, Truman, who had worked so hard on that but didn't achieve it, could be there.
So anyway, we had a generational challenge. So I said, we're not going to let anything stand in our way.
If there's a barrier to this, we'll break through the great push open the gate.
If that doesn't work, we'll climb the wall. If that doesn't work, we'll pull it all in. If that doesn't work, we'll cover it in.
But we're not letting anything stand in the way of passing this bill.
And I want to say, Ron Kind was very, I'm just mentioning one from Michigan, who at the time was on the Ways and Means Committee because we didn't like this.
Let me say it another way. We did not like the Senate bill. It was ridiculous in my view, but nonetheless it was the best that they could do.
But President Obama stuck with us on it, and we were able to read the book, and you'll see it in a book.
It's no use going into it, but the challenge between the House and the Senate, quite frankly, if Senator Kennedy had not passed away, I'm not even sure we would have had all 60 of those votes.
But we did get them for our amendments to our bill. But again, it's too complex.
Unless we spent the whole night on that, it's easier just to read it in the book if you're interested.
But it was remarkable. It was remarkable. And it took, this is what, and those who have threw us over those guys at press, they said, and some were women, but mostly it was the guys who were challenging your debt.
They said, which one did you do? The gate, I remember. I said we just pushed open the gate, because you know why?
We had the courage of the members that we needed those votes. But we also had the outside mobilization without the outside mobilization.
The groups, for one diagnosis or another, with people who are healthcare providers, all the rest saying, we have to have this change.
We must make it accessible, affordable, and quality. We must have, do away with the pre-existing condition barrier.
We must not be had being a woman, being a pre-existing medical condition. Women were paying 50 percent more.
We can't have a situation where we have a limit on what insurance companies pay, whether it's annual or lifetime.
And the pre-existing condition and the lifetime or annual limits were the biggest, shall we say, threshold to cross, because we had insurance.
You know, had all of the, shall we say, vested interest fighting against us. But it was really a fight.
And when John Lewis, you see John and I carried a vagavel over to use it, so we're a few of us there walking together and then the whole caucus behind us.
And when we were parading over from the accountability to the Capitol, which is not from here to the back of the room, they were screaming and yelling and spitting on John Lewis.
You have to understand, John Lewis was our guiding lighter in North Star. The most beautiful, I served with him for over 30 years in the Congress. He was my dear friend.
In fact, for his funeral, for the very before he died, I brought him this pin, and he wanted to have it about, and then we had him eye in state on the same platform that was built for Lincoln to lie in state.
That's how we revered him, and these people were spitting on him, so you can just imagine. One of them was dressed up like a nun too, but the nun, but the nun saved us, the nuns were going to forget the fish, the nuns saved us.
But it was hard. And then, and then when we lost them, and I even said, if Hillary wins, I don't have to stay because she will protect the affordable carrot.
This was such an important kitchen table issue for people, the cost of healthcare and the rest, and she, but then he came, and I said to him, I said to Mr. President, I will say to you what I've said to other presidents, I will never ask you to do anything that is not in your interest.
And I think it would be in your interest for us to talk about how we can advance the affordable carrot. He didn't have the faintest interest.
They tried maybe scores of times, scores of times to repeal it. He said it was going to repeal and replace, I don't know what it was replaced with because I don't even know what it was.
But nonetheless, scores of times, and then we had to fight them again, 10,000 events around the country of people coming to tell their stories.
Not talking about the provisions of the bill, their stories, my child was born, my baby was born, needed a heart operation, what would have cost a million dollars, those kinds of stories, and other stories about, especially pre-existing conditions or cancer diagnosis.
So in any event, John McCain saved the day, you know, this was the thumbs down, heard round the world on that.
So now, what's his name is saying? Forgive me, I know we're in a sacred place. Obama cares sucks. So he says, and now he's saying he was only there to save it.
He had the exact quote from last week's debate from President Trump when he was asked about the Affordable Care Act, which is pretty popular these days, was that he was going to quote, save it and make it as good as it can be.
So were you as startled as I was to hear that?
One thing you have to know about him is forgetting that statement because he's not on a level, so let's not even think of that.
But I see it's hard for me because I want to bring us together and all that.
So in any event, he says Obama cares sucks. Now we said no, it doesn't suck, it cures, and that's what this is about.
But he definitely wanted to get rid of it because that's where the money was.
Health insurance industry, anti-government, anti-government, shall we say, exuberance enthusiast who don't want to pay taxes.
This was paid for, we had it all paid, it was all paid for, and he just couldn't understand, but why were we talking about him?
Let's talk about Kamala Harris if we're going to retire.
But if you have a pre-existing condition, beware of anything he has to say.
What he does is he projects, like he says, crazy Nancy, he's crazy, crooked Hillary, he's crooked.
Every adjective he uses is really about himself, and so that's what you have to understand.
So when he's saying that people eat cats and dogs, I'm just wondering about him.
Well, so you held a position more powerful than any other woman in American history, and you decided the time had come to step away from that position.
And this is after you become the first speaker since Sam Rayburn to stay and fight for your majority back, and then you step away from the job.
Could you talk a little bit about generational change in the house?
Well, we're very proud of our general, but you have to understand that since I became leader, whip leader than speaker, the whole idea of diversity in the leadership changed.
So it was viewed differently, it's like, well, we had wonderful talent.
And when you have the job that I have, and it was a hard job, I mean, I probably didn't sleep four hours a night, we're always policy, the policy, the politics, the people, the aspirations of the members, you know, so many things going on, that you want the next person to do so much better because you have laid a foundation for them that you did not have.
No offense to the people went before me. It was just a different world. And so my excitement about it, and I was so excited about it, was that here they were ready to take over.
I came Jeffries to be the leader of Catherine Clark of Massachusetts, well, I came from New York, Catherine Clark from Massachusetts, Pete Aguilar from California, Ted Lu from California, as they were outstanding, and there were many other outstanding members.
So I knew that they could carry the ball, carry the torch and the rest of us.
My only hesitation was, I had assembled such a modestly again, the greatest staff in the history and the history of the Congress, enormous talent on issues and process and the parliamentary procedure, how to get things done.
Well, happily for many of them are spread among the new leadership, so we still have the benefit of their, for those who want it to stay, we still have that.
So that went away kind of fast. But we have to win this election. I'm telling you, the House of Representatives, I love it, those of you, if and when you read the book, I love the House.
I've always said, why didn't you run for something else? Why would I run for something else? I'm in the House of Representatives, and then of course to be the speaker.
But it is so exuberant, it's like a bandwagon every day, as opposed to a convoy down the hall, that goes as slow as the slower ship.
But that's the way it is, and I make reference to that in the book too, so they know what I think. But the thing is, the House can impeach.
There are twice the House can impeach. And we did on the basis of the law and the Constitution and the rest, they impeach if somebody does a stupid thing, you know, or they want to impeach, I don't know why, what do they come up with something every day, which has no basis.
Because you can't have people be frivolous with the Constitution of the United States that our founders wrote to protect our rights, our country, our democracy, but there's a lot of risk in this election.
So your decision to stay on the stage, even though you have given up the gavel, I mean this book is about power, and you still have a lot of power.
I mean we certainly have seen that over the last couple of months, this is my sneaky way of asking a Biden question.
But so what do you think explains your own enduring influence and your own enduring power, because it's not just connected to a title anymore.
Well, I don't have power. I mean speaker has awesome power. Pass laws, make committee assignments, recognize for speaking, all kinds of power.
But so that power is different. Influence is a different thing. I think I have influence, but I don't really have power. So that's how I see it.
So our time is beginning to come to a close here, but we did ask for questions from some audience members.
And I realize you are not here to fix the Republican Party, but one of our viewers named Gary Calhoun raises a question that I've been spending a lot of time thinking about as well.
If Donald Trump does lose this election, where do you see the Republican Party, and especially those moderate Republicans that you were talking about, what happens going forward?
Do you see any chance that there is still a core to the Republican Party that could sort of reject the MAGA movement, or are we just going to live with Trumpism?
Well, I'm probably the last person to ask about the future of the Republican Party. But as an observer, I would say, when I said earlier, we need a strong Republican Party in our country.
We need to recognize what was accomplished by the Republicans and the leadership that they have provided in the history of our country. It was founded by Abraham Lincoln.
Well, it was founded by him. I don't know where he'd be now, but I really do believe that there are, well, I say this, I'm not talking about the Congress of the United States.
Many serious Republicans out there, and who, see, here's what the Republicans have told me, outside Republicans, not in the Congress.
Well, let me just give you a look, some inventory. You know we had a vote on where we weighed the first time in the history of our country that freedom was pulled back from the beginning of our country.
This Constitution of the United States, bad in some respects was slavery and that kind of thing, but amendable abolished slavery, then black men had the right to vote.
Then women eventually had the right to vote and roby weighed all these things that happened until the Dobs decision. It was the first time in the history of our country when freedom was reduced, freedom was reduced by this court, freedom was reduced.
So when we took up a vote to try and roby weighed in the law of the land, of course we didn't get one Republican vote. Okay, but that's what they believe. Okay, so not one Republican vote.
Then I said I'm going to put on the floor, this was two years ago when we still had the majority, I'm going to put on the floor, Kathy Manning of North Carolina, she had the bill that said women have a right to contraception, have a right to contraception.
195 Republicans voted no, eight voted yes, that's the Republican Party in the Congress of the United States, eight voted yes to see women have a right to contraception.
Now when I was putting that on floor, members were saying, why are you doing that, they're all going to vote for it and they'll get well from their Bowie way, but I said, why am I here, okay?
You're nice, I'm not.
Boom, 195 Republicans said out of 203 that women do not have the right to contraception. So this is a very strange place, but what Republicans outside the Congress that I know my friends, I do have Republican friends.
And they said if we can't beat them in the primary, you have to beat them in the general, and then we can go back to our competition on the role of government, you know, the traditional debate between Democrats and Republicans, rather than this divisive assault on our democracy that they exercise within.
A president of the United States inciting an insurrection on the Congress, on the Constitution, on the Capitol of the United States, horrible coming after me for a vote in the head of News for the Vice President, and the President not sending the National Guard, even though he says, oh, I said, can't out of here, I mean, he really, it's really so sad because they were like, oh, we can't do that, it takes time.
But in any case, this is a very dangerous situation. So let's hope that we can win the election responsibly, unifyingly, invitingly to people to work together.
And a lot of those Republicans, if you take a poll, background checks, 80% for gun violence, protection, lots of Republicans, and they're gun owners, they have background checks, so why shouldn't everybody else, when you take a poll about raising the minimum wage, overwhelmingly, so many votes overwhelming in the public, but not in the Congress of the United States.
And of course, nothing demonstrates that more clearly than, of course, an ability to get background checks and ban assault weapons and that kind of thing, which has to be part of our first order of business when we win.
Well, matter speaker, this has been an absolute delight, and thank you so much for joining us tonight.
Again, again, thank you all.
I want to thank you again. Thank you all very much.