I'm Brian Lerer. This is my daily politics podcast from WNYC Studios. This is a weekend special.

Back with us is a frequent guest on this show, USA Today Washington Bureau Chief Susan Page.

Usually she comes on to explain what's happening in national politics, and she'll do some of that today. But stop the presses. Susan also has a

major new biography of the Speaker of the House. It's called Madam Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the

Lessons of Power. Hi, Susan, congratulations on the book, which is getting great

reviews, and welcome back as always to WNYC. Hey, Brian, thank you. It's always so good to be with you.

Let's talk about the book first, and we'll get into some news of the day later. I saw one review

that said something like, I'm doing this from memory, and I'm paraphrasing, but it was something like

your book is a kind of big

historical figure biography that's usually written about men. And I'm curious if you thought of

it that way explicitly when you were writing it. Well, one reason I was drawn to the subject was I

thought that Nancy Pelosi had done things that if she were a man, she would have gotten

more credit for.

In a way, the fact that she has been a groundbreakinger in terms of gender has meant that I

think some people don't see what a groundbreaker she has been in terms of actually enacting

policy, leading politics, as having done

consequential things. She's in the history books, of course, as the first woman speaker.

She should be in the history books as well for some of the things she's done in that role.

Well, go ahead. You set that up. Pick some.

All right.

Let me pick two.

One, 2008, financial meltdown.

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