The FRONTLINE Interviews
Chuck Schumer
Senate Majority Leader (D-N.Y.)
Chuck Schumer was first elected to the U.S. Senate (D-N.Y.) in 1999 and has served as Senate majority leader since 2021.
The following interview was conducted by FRONTLINE’s Jim Gilmore on Nov. 2, 2021. It has been edited for clarity and length.
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January 6
Senator, let me start out with Jan. 6.The evening of Jan. 6, you and Pelosi had been trying to get the Justice Department, the White House to intervene.It failed.The next day, after discussions you had with her and other leadership, you decided to try to reach the vice president to invoke the 25th.What was going on in your mind?What were you doing?Why was that important?
The speaker and I thought that, given what happened on the 6th and given that the day before we had been trying to get Trump to ask people to leave, to demand that people leave, we thought he didn't belong as president.And so our goal was to reach the vice president and ask him to invoke the 25th Amendment, which allows the Cabinet to replace the president under dire circumstances.This was dire.
As everything settles down in the days after—
Well, let me just finish that part.So we got on the—we both got on the phone.We asked for the vice president.They waited for 20 minutes and then said he wasn't available.We were waiting there for 20 minutes on the phone.
Your thoughts?
Our thoughts were, the vice president was scared and ducking it and not living up to his responsibility.
So as the days progress, before the inauguration, Pelosi now sees what the stakes are in moving forward?
Well, she, you know, we basically came to the conclusion that if they wouldn't—if the 25th Amendment wouldn't be invoked that she would go forward with impeachment in the House, the articles of impeachment, and we, even though we knew that Republican control still existed in the Senate, that we would—and that we wouldn't have the votes for it, that we would go forward.
Early Impressions of Pelosi
… So let me take you back into history.First time you meet Nancy Pelosi.I'm assuming it's during those early meetings.But the woman—
The first time I met Nancy Pelosi was as follows: She had just won an election.I think it was a special election in San Francisco.We had a little dinner group, 10 or 12, a very diverse group of Democratic senators, and we'd go to dinner Tuesday night, usually at an Italian restaurant.George Miller (D-Calif.), who was a member of the group, said to me, "You're going to meet someone in a minute.She's our new congresswoman from San Francisco.One day she'll be speaker."I said, "Wow."
And when I met her, I saw what he meant.She had it all.She had it all, and you could tell right from the beginning.
She comes from Baltimore.She was in San Francisco, very Democratic areas, very partisan Democratic.What are the tools she comes with when she comes to Washington that allow her—that the caucus is attracted to, that allows her to rise in the Democratic leadership?
Well, first, incredible energy.I work hard, I'm energetic, but I've never met anyone who had more energy than I did until I met Nancy Pelosi.She is amazing that way.She also is—she reaches out and listens to people when they don't agree with her, and not just nodding her head yes, but really understanding and trying to incorporate their needs.And she's passionate about things.Her life has been one of helping the children."The children."She always repeats it: "The children," "The children."It's a mantra for her, but it's much more than a mantra.She believes in it and has worked hard her whole life to make the lives of children throughout America, and throughout the world, better.
She also is a hard bird, some might say.She understands politics; she understands Baltimore politics; she understands partisan politics.
Yeah, the combination of Baltimore and San Francisco is a great combination.They may represent two parts of the Democratic Party—an old industrial town and a new West Coast tech place.So she gets that all.She has that.
Another thing she has, you know, for 40 years she spent—her first 40 years, she was, you know, did politics as an avocation, but she was raising five kids.It's a great lesson for her, and she treated Donald Trump in the perfect way, as the child he was.And she was able to get under his skin in ways that I don't think anyone else could.
Republicans Campaign Against Pelosi
We're going to get there in a second, but let me take you to 2010.The GOP spent $70 million on ads not against the Democratic Party, but against her.Why?What attracted them?Why did they focus on her?
Well, I think first, they saw how effective she was, and they resented that.Second, you know, I think because she's a woman.I doubt they would have had the same virulence of the attacks if she was, you know, had the exact same policies but she was a male from Kansas City.They would have been different.I think part of it was, she was a woman.Part of it was, they tried to demonize—they always try to demonize parts of the country, San Francisco Democrat.But most of all, they were afraid of her.They saw how good she was, and they knew, you know, they knew as speaker she'd be able to do so much, which she did in the few years she was speaker until 2010.
Pelosi and Trump
So let's jump up to Trump.That December 11, 2018, meeting, where the both of you were in the Oval Office.Take us into that room.
Well, you know, we go in there because, you know, Trump wants to build his wall and wants it as part of the budget, which was expiring, the appropriations.And we weren't going to give him the wall.I mean, he didn't have the votes for it.I think even some Republicans were opposed.But he came in, and they said to us, "No press.No press will be here.It will be a very private discussion."
Of course, the minute we come in, they bring all the cameras in, and Trump says, "Stay."And basically, it was a one-two punch.She went after him her way; I went after him my way.I knew at the right moment if I said, "You know, this is going to be your shutdown, Mr. President," how he'd respond.And of course he responded by saying, "Yeah, it is my shutdown."At that moment, I knew—I gave her a little look—that we had him, and we were going to win the fight, because if you own the shutdown, you'll usually lose it, almost always.
Pelosi's reaction to being called "weak"?
She told the president in no uncertain terms, in her very, very strong but respectful way, "I know how to count the votes in the—I know how to count the votes in the House a lot better than you do, so don't tell me what's going to happen in the House."
The 2020 State of the Union, an amazing event…
What are you thinking when you see it?Did you talk to her afterwards?
I said—again, she knows just how to treat Donald Trump, just how to get him under his skin.She wouldn't call him a name.She wouldn't growl at him.She just demurely ripped up the speech after it was finished, saying, "That wasn't worth much, was it?"
Did you have a conversation with her after?
I told her how great it was.
And she said?
She's modest.She doesn't, you know—I guess she nodded her head.
The Biden agenda.… How does all that she's learned by being here the many years, being in leadership positions, coming from where she came from, how does all that lead her—
Well, look, this is the more formidable task, I think, that she has faced.We have, number one, a bold agenda, probably the most transformational single piece of legislation since the New Deal, certainly since the Great Society.We have—she has a very narrow margin in the House because of the loss of seats in 2020, and a very diverse caucus.As you can imagine, it runs the gamut.
To put all—to get something passed is one of the hardest legislative tasks I have seen, and even in history when you go back and read history.But there's no one better up to the job than Nance.And if she fails the first time, you know, last week, she'll go right back at it and win.
I remember even during 2008, when the country was in real problems with the financial crisis and we needed to try to rectify that, the first time it failed in the House, and I knew she'd come right back and succeed the second time.And she did.She's indefatigable.She's relentless.She's smart.She learns from where things didn't go right and makes them better.She almost always, always wins.
Did you have a discussion with her beforehand?Did you have a plan with Biden about how to go big and how to go quick when you knew that the Republicans were never going to go along?
No, we had our first discussions on how to go big even before we took back the Senate.It was after the president won.We didn't know the exact numbers in the House, but we knew they had dwindled, but they had kept the House.The Senate, the Georgia election hadn't occurred.But we still felt America demanded that we go bold and big, and we discussed it as early as two weeks after the election.
We were always hopeful that we could win Republicans over, and Joe Biden wanted to try everything that he could in a bipartisan way.That's how the BIF came about, you know, the bipartisan infrastructure bill. …
Does Nancy Pelosi understand the clock is ticking for her as well as the Democratic Party?You've got a midterm coming up.What's at stake?
Well, what's at stake is nothing less than, I think, the future of our democracy.You ask yourself the question, how could such a demagogue-type personality, someone who is just—who will lie at will—I've seen it happen over and over again—someone who will divide, someone who almost relishes in uses bigotry and divisiveness, how did this guy get 74 million votes?And the answer is, people are losing faith in the American dream.Our mission—and it's a mission; it's not just a political platform—I think [for] Nancy and me and President Biden is to restore that faith.And the kind of bill—the kind of Build Back Better and BIF will do that, we believe.
Pelosi and the Affordable Care Act
Let's just talk real quickly about ACA [Affordable Care Act] back in Obama years.A lot of people have said that Nancy Pelosi understood from the very beginning and was telling the White House, "We're not going to get the Republican votes; we have to do it on our own; we have to do a Democratic bill.Let's go for it."But there was a disagreement about whether bipartisanship was possible.Possibly there were thoughts that Obama was a little naïve.
Nancy was much more dubious of bipartisanship—I wasn't part of the leadership then—so was I. But the White House wants to try bipartisanship.So did some of our Democratic members.And at the end of the day, it never came to pass.I think it's a lesson for what's happening now.It's very hard to get bipartisanship, and it's worse today than it was in 2010 because Donald Trump so controls the Republican Party, and his mission is to just have the Democrats, and Joe Biden in particular, fail.
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