Hey, everybody. It's me, Sam Stey, managing editor at The Bullwork, and I am joined today by Jonathan Cohn,

who is the author of our newsletter, The Breakdown, here at the Bullock, and former congresswoman

Barbara Comstock, who is gracious enough to give us her time on this lovely fall day.

We are gathered here, this weird gathering, because earlier this morning, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that

she is going to be retiring from Congress. She's going to serve out her current term.

And then she's going to leave, heading back to San Francisco, ending what we could probably say

is one of the most influential, if not the most influential career in Congress.

Certainly one of the most impactful speakers in the history of

that chamber. And we're here to talk about that legacy and to share some stories. So first of all,

thank you both for doing this. Really appreciate it. Barbara, you served with her. So I do want to

start with you. Obviously, you served. You were a Republican from Northern Virginia. You were on

that Bellwether District area.

She was targeting your seat probably the entire time. And she could be ruthless politically.

Let's just be honest about it. But I'm curious just for your reflections about what she was

like as a public figure and then as a private individual? Well, first of all, I was a

staffer in the 90s. So early in her career, so going way back, because I worked for Frank Wolf,

you know, the congressman I ended up replacing, she was on our hall. So when she was just a pretty new Congresswoman, she was friendly with Frank

Wolf because they both worked on against China, against MFN for China. So she would come into our office.

I didn't work on that issue too much for him. Another staffer did, but she would be in our office often.

So obviously she was, everyone knew she was very liberal, but my very conservative boss

agreed with her on that issue. So they were allies on that issue in the early 90s and worked

together on it. So, you know, I saw, you know, she's 85. My mom's just a little older. You know,

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