Friday Morning Politics: The Future of Democratic Leadership

[music]

Nancy Pelosi: With these elections, the people stood in the breach and repelled the assault on democracy. They resoundingly rejected violence and insurrection, and in doing so, gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.

[applause]

Brian Lehrer: Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, invoking The Star-Spangled Banner in her speech yesterday announcing that she will not run for a minority leader in the next session of Congress. The speech, which many people heard as an instant classic, was filled with seminal, patriotic, and, yes, optimistic references like that, things like The Star-Spangled Banner, and in the very next paragraph, the preamble to the United States Constitution.

Nancy Pelosi: Now, we owe to the American people our very best to deliver on their faith, to forever reach for the more perfect union, the glorious horizon that our founders promised.

Brian Lehrer: A more perfect union from the preamble to the Constitution. Want another one? How about a reference to the original motto of the United States as coined by John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin?

Nancy Pelosi: In their infinite wisdom, our founders gave us their guidance: e pluribus unum. From the many, one. They could not have imagined how large our country would become or how different we would be from one another, but they knew we had to be united as one. We the people. One country. One destiny.

Brian Lehrer: The motto "e pluribus unum," which, by the way, was replaced by "In God, we trust" in the conservative 1950s, did you know that? Returning to the preamble for the phrase, "We the people," in that clip, here's one more clip from the speaker's speech before we bring in our guests and open the phones. This one is not a reference to the government at its founding, but kind of the opposite. It's to the way the House of Representatives has changed.

Nancy Pelosi: It’s been with great pride in my 35 years in the House I have seen this body grow more reflective of our great nation, our beautiful nation.

[applause]

Nancy Pelosi: When I came to the Congress in 1987, there were 12 Democratic women. Now, there are over 90, and we want more. [laughs]

[applause]

Nancy Pelosi: The new members of our Democratic caucus will be about 75% women, people of color, and LGBTQ.

Brian Lehrer: Folks, there are a few excerpts from Nancy Pelosi's speech yesterday announcing she would keep her seat representing San Francisco but pass the torch to lead the Democratic conference when the new Congress convenes in January. I thought you might like to hear a few of those extended excerpts more than the short soundbites you've been getting on the regular newscast.

We've got two more to play as we go along in this segment. It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. We started the week with Time magazine national politics correspondent Molly Ball on the Democrats winning the Senate. We'll end it with Molly Ball on the Democrats losing the House. She is extra relevant to this because she wrote the biography of Nancy Pelosi called Pelosi that came out in 2020.

Also with us and also from high on the relevance matrix is former Democratic Congressman Steve Israel of Long Island, who was, in a way, Pelosi's chief political strategist between 2011 and 2015 as chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. He has since written two novels, by the way, both set partly on Long Island called Big Guns, and because he has a sense of humor, The Global War on Morris. Steve and Molly, thanks for coming on on a pretty historic occasion. Welcome back to WNYC.

Steve Israel: Thank you.

Molly Ball: Good being here. Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, anyone want to call in and say anything about what Nancy Pelosi has meant to you or to the country according to you? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Steve Israel, by the way, is currently director of the nonpartisan Institute of Politics and Global Affairs at Cornell University. Molly, heck of a speech with all that patriotism and can-do optimism at a pretty pessimistic time in our country. Was it the kind of speech that you would've expected from Nancy Pelosi as she passes the torch?

Molly Ball: I think so. Really, all of the hallmarks of her speaking style. It was a relatively brief speech, not particularly sentimental. Obviously, a lot of applause from her fellow Democrats in the House caucus who had all gathered in the chamber. I was there watching from the press gallery. There was a very large contingent of Democrats, a very small contingent of Republicans. She only spoke for about 10 minutes.

When she was finished, there was just a long line of well-wishers coming up to hug her and to thank her and just clear the outpouring of love that she has from her caucus. I think a bit of relief too because she'd kept everyone in so much suspense about this decision, including potentially herself, right? There was a lot of reporting that she herself didn't know exactly what she was going to do. With the House passing into Republican hands and her having made this decision that she would ease out, leave leadership, but not leave the House for now. It really paves the way for a whole new era in Congress on the Democratic side.

Brian Lehrer: Steve Israel, same question. Was it the kind of speech and with all those references to the founding documents and the founding individuals, kind of speech that you would've expected from Nancy Pelosi as she passes the torch?

Steve Israel: Absolutely. It was a blend of that can-do-must-do attitude of Nancy Pelosi and her grasp of history. I want to share with you a behind-the-scenes view of Pelosi's grasp with history and guiding every decision that she and the caucus made. When we would meet with her in her conference room and I was in the leadership for six years, there was only one thing that she displayed on her walls, and that was a portrait of former Congressman Abraham Lincoln.

This beautiful commanding portrait of Lincoln on the floor of the House. It was hanging just above her seat at the head of the table. No matter what issue we were grasping or grappling with, no matter what strategic decisions we were making, she would always end the conversation by pointing to that portrait and saying, "Remember what Lincoln said, 'Public sentiment is everything.'" She was guided by history, but she also understood fundamental strategy and tactics in connecting with the public to achieve her legislative goals.

Brian Lehrer: Public opinion is everything? I wouldn't think that.

Steve Israel: Public sentiment is everything is what Lincoln said.

Brian Lehrer: Right. Why that of all things? Because sometimes public sentiment can be racist, sometimes public sentiment can be wrong, so why public sentiment?

Steve Israel: Oh, it's a great question. Her view was you have to educate the public. I'll give you another example. I had a hard time voting on something that was very difficult in my district. I saw her on the floor and I said, "Madam Leader, this is going to be rough for me. I don't know if I'm going to make it through the next election if I take this vote." This is the Bush tax cuts and I represented Long Island.

Long Island loves tax cuts. I said, "I don't think I can make it through my next election." She looked at me and she said, "Well, your job is to just go out and educate your constituents about why you need to vote the way you're going to vote." That was what she meant by, "Public sentiment is everything." You have to educate people and bring them along.

Brian Lehrer: Interesting. Molly, she said in the first clip we played, "With these elections, the people stood in the breach and repel the assault on democracy. They resoundingly rejected violence and insurrection, and in so doing, gave proof through the night that our flag was still there." It definitely gave me chills hearing it put that way. It's true, as we've been talking about on the show all week, that all those Republican candidates for governor and Secretary of State who wanted to mess with the true outcome of elections lost, and the Dems held the Senate, but Pelosi's Democrats also lost the majority in the House. Why did we get this mixed result?

Molly Ball: Oh, well, I thought you were going to ask me why she was acting as if it was a victory, which I think there are a lot of Democrats--

Brian Lehrer: Well, go ahead. Go ahead and answer that question. That's a better question, so go ahead and answer your question.

Molly Ball: No, I'll answer them both. I'm not going to do the politician thing here where I answer the question I wish you would've asked me.

[laughter]

Molly Ball: Look, I think for a lot of Democrats, it did feel like a moral victory that they held the Republicans to such a narrow takeover of the House. There's a lot of questions ahead as we've discussed for the Republicans and for Kevin McCarthy and whether he can be speaker. It was very interesting because I spoke with Speaker Pelosi immediately after that floor speech. I had a conversation with her.

She did see this election as a sort of victory despite Democrats having lost the House. In exactly the terms that she spoke about in her speech, she felt that the American public had really delivered a verdict on what she viewed as the indecency and just unacceptable attitudes of the Republican Party. One of the things that she said was that she had said before the election that her thinking about this decision was influenced by that horrendous, brutal attack on her husband in their home in San Francisco from which he's still recovering.

When I spoke to her about that, she said that some people took that the wrong way, took that to mean that she was more inclined to go home and not spend so much time in Congress or in DC. It was just the opposite, she said. She said she couldn't give them that satisfaction of feeling like they'd driven her out. She believed that the American people had delivered a verdict potentially about that as well.

She said that she's seen some information that the way Republicans responded to the attack on Paul Pelosi and the party's failure to come together and denounce political violence was itself a part of that calculation that voters made in the election of looking at the Republicans and saying, "We just don't want to give you this mandate despite all of the reasons that we may be upset with the Democrats." She looks at this election where the Democrats did lose the House and still sees, I think, a lot of reason for hope and optimism and a way forward.

Brian Lehrer: Would it be reading too much into, "Wouldn't go back to San Francisco to give them the satisfaction," which you just said, to think that she saw it on one level as all these Republican men wanting to force the most powerful woman in the history of the country to go home and take care of her man?

Molly Ball: Oh, I don't know if she'd put it exactly that way. I think it was more just feeling like this crazed lunatic who attacked her so personally couldn't get the satisfaction of having forced that decision on her. She's always made decisions on her own terms. I think there's also a political calculus here. I'd love to hear Congressman Israel's thoughts on this.

With such a narrow minority, such a narrow margin in the House, the Democrats need all the votes they can get. For her to stay there, for Steny Hoyer to stay there, for Jim Clyburn to stay there, all three of them giving up their leadership slots but staying in Congress, that also adds to the Democrats' vote count. I think that's probably also something she was thinking about.

Brian Lehrer: Steve, want to pick it up on this strategy as Molly set you up for?

Steve Israel: Molly is exactly right. Look, prevalent in her thinking about this succession, which, by the way, began in 2012, I can tell you, prevalent in her thinking was, "How do I do this in a way that can assure a smooth transition to the new leadership? How do I do this in a way that preserves our majority during a lame duck?" There are some difficult decisions to be made, some pretty tough votes that will have to be taken between now and the Republican majority on January 3rd.

Those two concerns were weighing very heavily on her. She's still the speaker. She will be speaker until the Democrats have their leadership elections. During that time, she can preside over a smooth transition, presumably to Hakeem Jeffries. During that time, she can make sure that those who may not get what they wanted get something else. Pelosi is a genius at healing disappointments and smoothing ruffled feathers. Only she can do that. She'll be in a position to do that.

She'll be able to help fill the vacuum that she will leave in fundraising. She'll have the time she needs to reach out to donors, introduce them to the new leadership, and make sure that the Democrats don't fall off a cliff with respect to fundraising revenues, which they're going to need. They're going to need those resources to take back the majority. Finally, on those very difficult votes that are coming on, some of the contentious issues, she will still be there making sure that the Democrats have 218 votes.

Brian Lehrer: With our guests, Molly Ball from Time magazine and a Pelosi biographer and former Long Island Congressman Steve Israel, who was in the Democratic House leadership under Pelosi, we will get to some of what we might expect with the Republican majority Congress come January. Another thing as early referenced that we might expect is New York Congressman Hakeem Jeffries of Brooklyn and Queens becoming the new Democratic leader after Nancy Pelosi.

As a program note, Congressman Jeffries will be on with us Tuesday morning. He's scheduled to be our first guest Tuesday morning at 10:00. That's something very much to look forward to at this time. 212-433-WNYC is our phone number. Women out there, what did Nancy Pelosi's leadership mean to you? What did her place in history mean to you up till this point? Anyone else? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, or tweet @BrianLehrer. We'll get to your calls.

Molly, in your biography called Pelosi, you tell a story of Nancy as a girl in 1957 getting to hear John F. Kennedy in person. Kennedy then a senator, not yet president. You write, "Kennedy's appeal was lofty and ideological, rooted in patriotism and faith." You write, "It would become the model for Nancy's evolving political orientation, Catholic social justice with a hint of noblesse oblige." Can you say more about the line from JFK to Nancy Pelosi?

Molly Ball: Yes, absolutely. She would be the first to tell you that he was her political role model. She attended his inauguration and her father was a supporter. She really represents and has been a part of the change in the Democratic Party over the decades, right? She came from a political family in Baltimore that was very much the early 20th-century, white ethnic, urban machine Democratic politics. That was the sort of favor trading and patronage politics that her father practiced, but then the example of JFK was much more ideological, much more idealistic.

Then she got married and followed her husband, Paul Pelosi, to his hometown of San Francisco, where she really came to represent and epitomize what's often derisively called the San Francisco liberal, someone who cared a lot about social justice, about gay rights, about international human rights, about the environment. Those have been some of the big causes that she has championed in the House. Those are really much more the ideology of the modern Democratic Party.

Not only does she symbolize that transition, I think she's been a driver of it. One of the things that a lot of people don't know about Nancy Pelosi is that she's really the reason that the Democrats held their convention in San Francisco in 1984. At the time, she was a volunteer and party chair. She chaired that convention and helped bring it to San Francisco. It was at that convention that the derisive term "San Francisco liberal" was coined. She still gets called that name, but she really played a part in it even being coined.

Brian Lehrer: You write in your book, "When JFK became president, Nancy attended his inauguration. 'Ask not what your country can do for you,' Kennedy famously declared, 'Ask what you can do for your country,' but it was the next line, far less famous," you write, "that moved her most deeply. 'My fellow citizens of the world,' he said, 'Ask not what America will do for you but what together we can do for the freedom of man.'" Wow. Did you hear echoes from that speech by Kennedy 61 years ago in the one we heard from Pelosi yesterday?

Molly Ball: Yes, she quotes that line all the time to this day. People may remember the controversy that she caused over the summer by going to Taiwan. The China issue is one that she's been active on for decades. It really does come from a position of concern for universal human rights.

Whether you look at, going back to the 1980s, when she stood up for gay rights at a time when that was a much less popular cause, even in San Francisco, and she would not back down from her belief that, as she said at the time, "All people, gay or straight, are children of God," going all the way forward into the present day, through Tiananmen Square to her concern for the people of Hong Kong and others suffering under the repressive Chinese regime, she has really maintained that orientation toward human rights of all kinds. I think she would tell you that it comes from her faith, from her deep Catholic faith, and it also comes from that inspiration from JFK and others, that ideological lodestar that she's always held.

Brian Lehrer: From that lofty idealism back down to the ground of electoral politics. Steve, back to you as a former Democratic congressman from Long Island, which now has four Republicans and no Democrats representing it in Congress. Don't just blame redistricting because I understand the new lines in the fourth district in Nassau County, the one that Democratic Kathleen Rice used to represent, define an area that Joe Biden won by 15 points. The Republican, Anthony D'Esposito, won over the Democrat for Congress. What's happening on Long Island, your stomping grounds, as you see it?

Steve Israel: People have called this a sea change. I really do think it was a perfect storm. Partially, it was redistricting. The third congressional district, for example, my former district was supposed to be a slam dunk for Democrats. In the second map, we've been getting slammed.

Brian Lehrer: Just so people have the context, that's the Tom Suozzi district.

Steve Israel: Tom Suozzi district, yes.

Brian Lehrer: Northeast Queens and a lot of the North Shore of Long Island.

Steve Israel: On the first redistricting map, which was overly aggressive and, quite honestly, backfired. That district went from the North Shore of Nassau County and Northeast Queens and some of Suffolk County all the way into Rockland County. It spanned bridges. It spanned the Long Island Sound. It almost spanned time zones. The New York courts, the Court of Appeals, said this will not stand, so they did.

The original maps, I think, would have netted Democrats about three seats. It ended up netting Republicans three or four seats. You can't just blame redistricting. There were other issues. Long Island is Lee Zeldin's territory. He has been in this media market for longer than Kathy Hochul has been in this media market. He's a bit of a hometown hero. I'm not surprised that he overperformed against Hochul. That had a very positive down-ballot effect for the four Republicans running for Congress.

Then, finally, there was the crime issue. That issue was very resonant on Long Island. When people hear things like "defund the police" and cashless bail, notwithstanding whatever policy ideals may be behind those issues, it does rank all Long Island voters. Brian, here's the thing. Final point on this. Long Island is defiantly centrist. When they believe that a political party has gone too far in one direction, they have this Pavlovian response to nudge it back to the center.

If the four new Republican members of the House from Long Island align themselves with the likes of Marjorie Taylor Greene and shut down the government and vote ideologically to the right, there will be a course correction in 2024. They can't be Marjorie Taylor Green. They have to govern like Peter King, the former Republican congressman from Long Island, who really did govern from the center. That's the model of success on Long Island.

Brian Lehrer: Sally in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi, Sally.

Sally: Oh, thanks for taking my call. I had told your screener that I know, because Nancy Pelosi has been in that leadership position for so many decades, there are a lot of people who have gone back and forth over whether they thought she was wonderful or whether they had quibbles about her. I just keep remembering seeing in the investigation of January 6th hearings, the videos of her composure, her determination to figure out a way to stay safe in the Capitol during the insurrection. Anything that you might have thought about Nancy Pelosi that you were tired of went out the window when you saw how dedicated and how serious and how effective she was.

Brian Lehrer: Sally, thank you very much. Molly, if anybody had a doubt about Nancy Pelosi as somebody who could take charge in a crisis, that video that emerged that I think was shot by her daughter, who's a filmmaker, of her on the phone with, was it the Secret Service or the Capitol police? Chuck Schumer, the majority leader of the Senate, is standing there right with her, but he's just going, "Uh-huh, uh-huh, me too. Yes, she's right." She's taken charge to say, "We need this and we need that, and we need it now and we're afraid for our lives." That was some display by Nancy Pelosi that I think will be unforgettable to history.

Molly Ball: Absolutely. It really showcased a lot of the qualities that have made her so successful as a congressional leader, right? That orientation toward action, what one of her mentors, who I quote in my book, called "being operational," right? She's always focused on results and focused on what she can do in the moment to advance toward those results. She does not spend a lot of time dithering potentially to a fault, right? She makes decisions very quickly. She's very decisive. She knows where she stands and then she takes action. While others may be twiddling their thumbs or hemming and hawing, she's going to be the one who's making the phone call and, by the way, chewing on a Slim Jim the whole time.

[laughter]

Molly Ball: She's not someone who spends a lot of time worrying about her diet. Often has chocolate ice cream for breakfast. After I spoke with her yesterday, after her floor speech, she was going off to have her traditional lunch of a hot dog.

Brian Lehrer: In an earlier generation, it would've been a cigar. For Nancy Pelosi in 2021, it was a Slim Jim. All right, two more clips of the Pelosi speech coming up. More of your calls on Pelosi's career and legacy and more with our guests, Pelosi biographer Molly Ball and former Long Island Congressman and leading Pelosi strategist Steve Israel. 212-433-WNYC.

[music]

Nancy Pelosi: As we participate in a hallmark of our republic, the peaceful, orderly transition from one Congress to the next, let us consider the words of, again, President Lincoln spoken during one of America’s darkest hours. He called upon us to come together, to swell the chorus of the union when once again touched as surely they will be by the better angels of our nature. That again is the task at hand.

Brian Lehrer: More from Nancy Pelosi's speech yesterday, saying she won't run for minority leader in the new Congress but will stay as a member of Congress from San Francisco. We'll continue now with Pelosi biographer Molly Ball and former Long Island Congressman and leading Pelosi strategist. He was in Congress in that role as head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee from 2011 to 2015 and a few more years of Congress on top of that. Your calls on Pelosi's legacy at 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. One more excerpt from yesterday's speech yet to come. Unna in Jersey City, you're on WNYC. Hi, Unna.

Unna: Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my call.

Brian Lehrer: Sure, I see you're originally from San Francisco.

Unna: Yes, I am. I've been living in Jersey City now for 20 years. San Francisco stays with me because I was lucky enough to be raised amongst these giants like Nancy Pelosi and Dianne Feinstein. It just informed how I conduct myself today. I am just so grateful to have such giants like Nancy Pelosi as markers in my life because it has helped me just fight against injustice and stand up for what I think is right and look out for my fellow citizens in ways where I remind them that it's up to us.

We have to vote. We have to encourage one another to stand up for what we believe is right and hold our elected officials accountable. I feel like Nancy Pelosi was one of those giants that showed me that if you do that, then you will have the right people in office who will stand up and look out for us as a people. I can't thank you enough to her for her service.

Brian Lehrer: Unna, thank you so much for your call. Steve Israel, are you surprised that Pelosi is staying in Congress if she's leaving the leadership and not resigning altogether? Some people thought she would.

Steve Israel: No, I'm not surprised at all. This goes back to something I said earlier. She began calculating and considering and contemplating her departure from Congress in 2012. I would sit with her and then Maryland Congressman Chris Van Hollen, now a senator, and she would say to us, "Look, I've got nine grandchildren at home. I don't need to stay. Let's talk about a succession." As Molly knows because she writes about this in her book, she had criteria for how she would actually leave Capitol Hill.

Number one, was the caucus going to be well-served by her successor? She wanted to make sure that the caucus is a very disparate, diverse caucus. Somebody who could succeed her and unify the caucus. Number two, somebody with the skills to negotiate legislation, negotiate not just with the Republicans in the House, but with Democrats in the Senate and the White House. Number three, somebody who had a capacity to raise the funds that Democrats would need to compete with Republicans.

Every single cycle that I served with her in leadership, she was contemplating who that would be. Quite bluntly, she at one point said to Chris Van Hollen, "You should do it." Chris decided to run for the Senate. She said to me at a certain point, "You should do it," and I made other decisions with my life. The reason that she's not leaving Capitol Hill entirely and staying where she is, is because she wants to make sure that those criteria are fulfilled. She may be a backbencher, but she's still going to sit in the front row. She has a unique ability to ensure that all of those criteria are fulfilled.

She can usher in the new leadership. She can make sure that some who wanted to compete for leadership and now won't are well-served, taken care of. She can negotiate with the new speaker of the House on things. Now, things like committee ratios have to be decided. She can work with Hakeem Jeffries to negotiate those issues. She will be a critical presence on Capitol Hill. By the way, from a more parochial perspective that Unna may appreciate, she will also have a lot to say about who succeeds her in that district in San Francisco. She can do that from her seat in the House of Representatives.

Brian Lehrer: Vanette in Cedar Grove, you're on WNYC. Hi, Vanette.

Vanette: Good morning. I love your show, Brian. I listen every morning and I really do get informed by many of the topics that you discussed. I just wanted to say that the reason why the Republicans were always using her in their ads was because they were afraid of her because she is definitely a boss. Now, they have to change all of their-- I'm sorry. I'm a little bit nervous.

They have to change all of their approach now to how they go about or trying to get other people to be afraid of Nancy, but she is just someone who can get things done and they know it. That's the reason why most of their ads, I wanted to say, they use it to scare people and say, "Oh, Nancy this and Nancy that." Like I said, she knows her way around the House of Representatives. She knows all of the things that need to be done in order for her to get the votes that she needed.

She never took a vote that she lost. She is really someone that I look up to as a woman. I'm happy that she is staying and not leaving completely because I know that she will be there to mentor the new leaders because we definitely need new leadership, but we need to have the right leaders and know what they're doing and how to do things just like how Nancy did. Thank you so much.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you so much, Vanette. Molly, what about the Republican vilification and caricatures of Pelosi over the years? She was definitely portrayed as the wicked witch of the Pacific Northwest and portrayed even as in the crosshairs of a gun on a target controversially and so much more in elections that she wasn't even running in. Do you deal with this in your biography of her?

Molly Ball: Yes. In fact, the public perception of Pelosi has been such a huge part of the conversation around her. It's a huge part of my book because I think, in a lot of ways, she is a window into our culture's changing perceptions of women in leadership. Being the first woman Speaker of the House, she did face an unprecedented onslaught of attacks. Now, it's true that in the past, the Democrats had attacked Newt Gingrich or the Republicans had attacked Tip O'Neill, but never to this extent where she really became this national hate figure, the subject of hundreds of thousands of Republican ads cycle after cycle.

With all due respect to your caller, the real reason they did it was because it worked. It was effective for them. It struck some sort of visceral chord in the Republican base and also in a lot of independent voters. They just didn't like her. Her being this polarizing figure, the Republicans really elevated her. I would argue there's nothing unfair about this, right? It's literally true that a vote for your hometown Democratic representative, however sane and normal and moderate you might think they are, is, in fact, a vote to put liberal Nancy Pelosi in charge of the House of Representatives.

The argument that they're making is not at all farfetched or unfair, but it is the case that that was an effective argument for Republicans for many years. It did lead to her becoming a very polarizing figure in a way that caused the Democrats a lot of angst and led to a lot of what we saw over the years of Democrats grumbling and even trying to push her out of her role in leadership. In the end, she did leave on her own terms and she was always very defiant in the face of that sort of criticism. One of the things she would say was, "I think I'm worth the trouble."

Steve Israel: May I build on that for a moment?

Brian Lehrer: Yes. Go ahead, Steve.

Steve Israel: I wanted to share with you how she responded to those attacks. She would go out and raise money for candidates in purple or red districts, and then they would publicly announce at a debate that they would not vote for her for speaker or for leader because they felt that they had to disassociate themselves from her brand. I had the unpleasant task of saying to her, "You know that candidate that you just raised money for? That candidate has just said that they won't vote for you, so what do you want me to do about it?"

She would look at me and she would say, "They can say whatever they want about me as long as they win and support our legislative priorities." She had a very strategic and tactical view of those things. Other thing I want to share with you is even in my own district on Long Island, the Republicans in 2010 plastered almost every utility poll with a poster, picture of Pelosi, and a slogan, "Steve Israel votes with Pelosi 98% of the time." I showed the poster to her one day and she autographed it and wrote, "To Steve Israel volunteers, onward."

[laughter]

Brian Lehrer: That's great. Molly, do you want to add a gender overlay of any kind to what you were just describing about how and why they went after Pelosi? Not so much why because, obviously, you're going to make the leader of the other party the villain in trying to raise money and raise votes for your party, but was it different with Nancy Pelosi given her place in history as the first woman speaker?

Molly Ball: Well, yes, but in a way, it's impossible to say because she's the only woman who's ever occupied that position. I think her hope would certainly be that she's paved a way for more women as she mentioned in the clip from her floor speech that you aired. There were very few when she first got there. There was not even a bathroom for women off the House floor. We've gone from a situation where she was one of just 23 women out of the 435-member House of Representatives when she arrived in Washington in 1987.

Today, there's more than 100 and she's done a lot to recruit more women and to bring more women into the process. One of the things that she and I have talked about and that she said publicly is that one of the biggest obstacles she faces is when she'll talk to these highly-qualified, ambitious professional women who she's trying to get to submit themselves to the electoral process.

They say, "I look at what you go through. I look at all the abuse you take. I look at the attacks on you and it makes me not want to get in the arena." I think one of the things that she most regrets about the way that she's been targeted is not the effect on her personally. She's got a pretty thick skin, but she really dislikes the fact that it may have driven so many other good people and particularly good women away from public service.

Brian Lehrer: Morgan in Mastic Beach on Long Island has a question for you, Steve Israel. Morgan, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Morgan: Hi, good afternoon. Thank you so much for taking my call. Yes, my question is for the former congressman in regards to his much earlier comment about his advice from Speaker Pelosi when he knew that his vote would be against his constituent wishes. Don't you feel that under Pelosi's leadership, you were then working for the party and not your constituents, and that has played a significant role in why Long Island is continuing to turn red because Democratic leaders are voting for their Democratic leader and not for their voters?

Steve Israel: Well, it's a fair question. I would suggest that Republicans who go to Congress, they will also be influenced by partisan considerations. I have to tell you that Pelosi's view at the end of the day was if you're about to cast a vote that you fundamentally disagree with and that you believe your constituents fundamentally disagree with, don't cast it. Vote the other way. I went through that with her on several occasions.

She was adamant and she expected that you would make the case, that you weren't going to do something based on pure expedience. You weren't going to do something only because you would suffer the inconvenience of taking a few shots at home. You were expected to explain the issue, to interact with your constituents, to reach a principal judgment that was in your best interest and your constituents' best interest, but she would not tolerate you saying, "I'm just going to vote against this without any effort whatsoever because it's an easier vote for me."

Brian Lehrer: Steve, last question for you. You've been in the minority as a Democrat in Congress. Now, the Democrats are headed for minority status again in the House. How do you play defense in that role? Can they also play offense on policy without the majority of votes?

Steve Israel: Well, the margin that Kevin McCarthy will have will be very narrow. About the margin that Nancy Pelosi has right now, at the end of the day, probably about 213 to 222. Maybe 214 to 221. The Republican margin leaves very little room for error and there is going to be fundamental instability on the Republican side. Kevin McCarthy is going to need to thread a needle that is always aimed at his back between the Freedom Caucus, who he will depend on for his speakership, and the moderate Republicans he will depend on for his speakership.

You've got to take advantage of that instability. There are tools that the minority has in order to press their messaging. Nobody has been able to use those tools and figure out which ones to pull out of the toolbox more effectively than Nancy Pelosi, which is another reason that I believe she's decided to remain in the House for a while longer so that she can help sharpen and shape those strategies vis-à-vis the new Republican majority.

Brian Lehrer: Molly Ball, last question for you. The next Democratic leadership, we're told, will likely be three particular younger members: Hakeem Jeffries from New York, Pete Aguilar from California, Katherine Clark from Massachusetts. Because as you both have been saying, not just Pelosi, but the numbers two and three leaders, Steny Hoyer and Jim Clyburn also in their 80s, are also stepping down. Do you think stepping away together is intended to send a message to President Biden at all for 2024?

Molly Ball: Not on their part. I think these three will have certainly made the argument against ageism over and over again and have been strong supporters of President Biden. Congressman Clyburn, the whip, famously endorsed Biden and probably is the reason that he's president and continues to be a close advisor to him. It's also the case that the three of them don't necessarily move in lockstep. They each have independent political organizations.

Pelosi and Hoyer in particular have been frenemies, believe it or not, since 1963 when they worked for the same Democratic senator from Maryland long before either of them had any kind of political career. There's historically been a lot of tension between those two camps as I know Congressman Israel could attest. They didn't make that decision jointly. If anything, Pelosi was annoyed that she was the one who had to make the first move. She would've liked to see a little bit more deference.

In the broader Democratic Party, is there a lot of angst about the President's age just as there was about the age of the congressional leadership? Absolutely. Now that you have a fresh face on the congressional leadership in the House, is that going to make a lot of Democrats think about, "Is that something that we need on the top of the ticket for 2024?" I can tell you, it's not something that a lot of them talk about publicly, but it's certainly something that a lot of Democrats are thinking about.

Brian Lehrer: We thank Molly Ball, who wrote the biography of Nancy Pelosi called Pelosi and is Time magazine national political correspondent, and Steve Israel, who is director of the Institute of Politics and Global Affairs at Cornell University and was a congressman from Long Island and from 2011 to 2015, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee under Nancy Pelosi. We thank you two very, very much, but we give Nancy Pelosi the last word fittingly in this segment.

Nancy Pelosi: A new day is dawning on the horizon and I look forward, always forward, to the unfolding story of our nation, a story of light and love, of patriotism and progress, of many becoming one, and always an unfinished mission to make the dreams of today the reality of tomorrow. Thank you all. May God bless you and your families and may God continue to bless our veterans and the United States of America. Thank you all so much.

[applause]

 

Copyright © 2022 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.