And now from the University of Chicago Institute of Politics, the Act Spiles, with your host, David Axelrod.

One day when I was working as Senior Advisor to President Obama, I got a call from Speaker Nancy Pelosi, asking me to come over to a Democratic caucus.

The issue on the floor at the time was a cap and trade bill to deal with climate change. And Pelosi felt that we hadn't done enough from the White House end to push the bill forward.

I had barely gotten in the caucus room when she lit on me and began jabbing me in the chest and telling me what we needed to do to pass the bill.

And in the midst of this herring, a minister got up on the platform and began delivering me in vocation for the meeting.

The speaker quickly clasped her hands and bowed toward the floor in prayer.

But as soon as the minister said, amen, she unclassed and began jabbing me in the chest again and telling me exactly what we needed to do.

And that's one of the reasons why Nancy Pelosi was such an effective and is such an effective legislative leader.

One of the most impressive people that I met during my time in Washington for her ability to marshal her forces behind legislation.

As we've learned recently, no mean feat for any speaker of the House.

And I had a chance to talk with her about it the other day. Really enjoyed the conversation. I hope you do too.

I'm here with Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic leader of the House, former speaker who I had the pleasure of work with in my two years in Washington.

I grew up in New York City. I came to Chicago in the early 70s. I love urban politics. I mostly did mayor's races for years and years and years.

So Ram used to say, Ram a manual. People think she's a Pelosi, but really she's a De La Sandra. And it's important to know that.

Tell me about growing up in Baltimore in a political family. Your dad was the mayor. Your brother was the mayor. Tell me what that was like.

Well, when I was born, my father was in Congress from Baltimore. And when I was seven years old, in the first grade, he became the mayor of Baltimore.

And so when I went away to college, he was still the mayor of Baltimore. It was the only life I really knew. As a toddler or even my first memories, of course, was going off to Washington.

And I remember my first visit to the Capitol as a little girl with my five older brothers. So it's always been about public service, really not about politics, but public service.

We always had this sense of responsibility to other people. And we lived in it little, little in Baltimore, Maryland. We always lived there. And people thought when he became mayor, he'd moved someplace else, but that was really home for us.

So since I was a little girl, I could, people would knock on the door or call. And I could remember what my mother would say. And I could tell people who to call to get a bed in city hospital, go on welfare, you know, place to live in the projects.

I mean, it was just part of what we did with your dad when he was making his rounds as mayor.

Well, I did, but we were six of us. So at five, but seven kids, six boys, one girl, one of the boys died. It's a little boy. So it was raised five boys. I was a little girl. So people would say, don't invite Tommy, the Del San Jose, because you'll get seven of them. They travel with family.

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