Hello, friends. Welcome back to the Bill Press Pod. In American politics, there's never been a woman quite like Nancy Pelosi. She's the first woman ever to be majority leader in Congress. As a leader, she's the first woman ever to sit at the

table in the White House with congressional leaders from both parties. She's the first woman ever

to be Speaker of the House of Representatives. Not only that, she's done it twice, and she drives

Donald Trump crazy. As Amy Klobuchar said in one of the presidential

debates, quote, if you don't think a woman can beat Donald Trump, Nancy Pelosi does it every single

day. And yet, you know, we know very little about Nancy Pelosi, where she comes from, what makes her

tick, and what

makes her so effective.

Until now, that is, in a new biography of Speaker Pelosi called Pelosi, Time Magazine National

Political Reporter Molly Ball captures Nancy Pelosi at her very best.

I recently interviewed Molly Ball for a special program at the Hill Center on Capitol Hill.

Molly Ball, good to see you. Thanks for joining us. Great to see you, Bill. Thank you so much for having me.

So I want to start at the end because I was struck in the afterward to the book where you say

that about Nancy Pelosi, you don't have to agree

with her to respect her accomplishments and appreciate her historic career.

So in spending almost two years writing this book, interviewing Nancy Pelosi several times,

looking at her career, talking to a lot of

her friends and associates. What did you discover to be her strengths and then her weaknesses?

Well, a few things about her career that I think can be appreciated by partisans of all stripes.

And in fact, I do know some

Republicans who do, if not admire her, respect her skills. One is just her incredible effectiveness

as a legislator. If you talk to, you know, scholars of Congress, they will tell you that probably

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