How Nancy Pelosi came to call the shots

Consider This from NPR

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🗓️ 7 August 2024

⏱️ 13 minutes

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Summary

Speaker of the House Emerita Nancy Pelosi once told Washington Post Columnist Karen Tumulty quote "Nobody ever gives away power. If you want to achieve that, you go for it. But when you get it, you must use it."

That was in 2020, and Nancy Pelosi used her power then. She's still using it. Most recently to influence President Joe Biden's decision to end his presidential campaign.

First as a volunteer and democratic fundraiser, then as a member of Congress, and finally as the most powerful woman in political history, Nancy Pelosi has spent the better part of four decades amassing power and using it to achieve her legislative goals.

Now she's put pen to paper about HOW she did that.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Before she was a meme,
0:03.2	before she stared down, then President Trump in the White House,
0:07.1	before she became arguably the most powerful woman in American political history.
0:13.0	Nancy Pelosi was a San Francisco mother of five
0:17.0	running for Congress for the first time.
0:19.0	The point is, this for 25 years, I've been working to turn ideas and issues into public policy in Sacramento in Washington, D.C.
0:27.0	Pelosi had been working for 25 years for democratic causes, but as a volunteer and successful fundraiser, she had never held elected
0:36.3	office and her rivals in that 1987 special election in California's 5th district, they were skeptical to say the least.
0:45.6	How can she relate to people like me, a single parent working mother?
0:50.6	Why can't she relate?
0:51.6	Let me tell me to answer that. I don't think she can't. She's never. mother. Why somebody in a way? The first voice you heard, that is then San Francisco Board of Supervisors Member and
1:00.0	Congressional Candidate Carol Ruth Silver. The woman trying to break in, that's a 47-year-old
1:06.7	Nancy Pelosi. And that moment stands in stark contrast to this one, January when the mother from San Francisco made
1:16.1	history as the first woman to become speaker of the house.
1:20.3	For these children, our children, and for all of America's children, the house will
1:27.0	come to order.
1:32.0	Consider this. Nancy Pelosi has spent the better part of four decades, amassing power, and using
1:38.8	it to achieve her legislative goals.
1:40.9	Now she's put pen to paper about how she did that.
1:49.0	From NPR, I'm Mary Louise Kelly.
1:59.7	Support for this podcast and the following message come from Wise, the app that makes managing your money in different currencies easy.
2:02.3	With Wise, you can send and spend money internationally
	...

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