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The New Yorker Radio Hour

Nancy Pelosi: “Timing Is Everything”

The New Yorker Radio Hour

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

Politics, Arts, News, Wnyc, Books, David, Storytelling, Society & Culture, Yorker, New, Remnick

4.26.2K Ratings

🗓️ 14 October 2019

⏱️ 43 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has a lot of fights on her hands. After she led the Democrats to victory in the 2018 midterm elections, her legislative agenda hit a number of roadblocks, including the Republican-controlled Senate. But it is Pelosi’s confrontations with Donald Trump that will go down in history. Through numerous scandals, Pelosi resisted pressure to move to impeach the President, frustrating many members of her party and leading some on the left to question her leadership. “There was plenty the President had done, evidenced in the Mueller report and other things, that were impeachable offenses,” she tells Jane Mayer. “For me, timing is everything. I said, ‘When we get more facts, when the truth has more clarity, we will be ready. We will be ready.’ ” While she has come around on impeachment, Pelosi still hews toward the center of the Party and resists some proposals from the progressive left, such as Medicare for All. “November matters,” Pelosi likes to tell colleagues running in the primaries. “What works in Michigan . . . [like] economic security for America’s working families—that works in San Francisco. What works in San Francisco might not work in Michigan. So let’s go with the Michigan plan, because that’s where we have to win the Electoral College.”   Pelosi, who has been in Congress for more than thirty years, has led the House Democrats since 2003. She spoke with the staff writer Jane Mayer in a live interview at The New Yorker Festival, on October 12th.

Transcript

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0:00.0

You're listening to The New Yorker Radio Hour.

0:10.6

On this episode of the podcast, conversation with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

0:15.4

Pelosi sat down with Jane Mayer, the magazine's chief Washington correspondent on October 12th for a live interview at the New Yorker Festival.

0:29.6

So thrilled to have you here.

0:31.8

I understand that things have been really dull in Washington recently, and you have

0:37.2

tons of free time on your hands to join us.

0:40.2

So thank you very much for coming.

0:42.6

We will talk about some of the issues I know you want to talk about,

0:46.8

but I have to say, I think we kind of have to start with impeachment.

0:52.8

So I just wanted to get, if you could, an idea of when it was, if you could

1:00.0

talk to us about the moment, when you felt it was time to go ahead and authorize the inquiry

1:07.0

into impeachment, what was going on at that moment, and what were you thinking at that point?

1:11.7

How did it happen?

1:13.8

So you want to talk about that? Okay.

1:16.9

Now, if that hadn't happened, what would we be talking about?

1:20.6

I hope we'll have a chance to talk about how we are lowering the cost of prescription drugs by HR3.

1:26.5

And what we are doing right now, just to put this in context, we have been since we took

1:32.1

the majority.

1:33.5

So we're legislating.

1:36.0

We're investigating and we are litigating.

1:40.4

Our investigations have led us to the courts where we won five cases in the courts.

1:47.0

That's just got to be a record.

...

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