The FRONTLINE Interviews

Robert Costa

Co-author, Peril

Robert Costa is the chief election and campaign correspondent for CBS News. He previously reported on politics for The Washington Post and is the co-author, with Bob Woodward, of Peril.

The following interview was conducted by FRONTLINE's Michael Kirk on Oct. 26, 2021. It has been edited for clarity and length.

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Pelosi’s Power

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January 6

Let's start with Jan. 6.… Why does Nancy Pelosi, from your point of view, take such an aggressive role in the days right after Jan. 6?

Pelosi takes charge.She has been watching everything from over at the military base where she was stationed on Jan. 6, and on Jan. 7, she goes to Schumer, and she says, "We need to get Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment."Pelosi is in command.She takes the moment utterly seriously.This is a crisis for American democracy.She's the leader of House Democrats, but she's a leader in the country.And she feels in this vacuum, in this terrible moment, she has to do something.

Her first step: try to get Pence to take control of the executive branch, to get things under control.So she says to Schumer, "We have to call Pence."And they decide to call Pence together.Pelosi and Schumer get together, and they call up Pence.The phone rings and rings.Pence won't take the call.

Pence turns to his advisers and says, "What's our situation with the 25th Amendment?"And they tell him, "We don't believe, sir, that the president's incapacitated mentally or physically, so we would advise you, as your lawyers, to not invoke the 25th Amendment."

An aide gets on the phone with Pelosi and Schumer and says, "Pence isn't coming on the line."Pelosi turns to Schumer and says, "If he's not going to take this call, we need to move toward impeachment."

What do you think is up with her, Bob?How did she see her role?That's pretty amazing, actually: the Democratic House member, the third in line for the presidency, advocating so strongly to get rid of the president, either straightforwardly with the 25th to the extent that that's straightforward or impeach him.What is going on with her, do you think, from what you can tell?

It's no surprise that Nancy Pelosi wants to get involved and wants to lead this crisis event.She is steeped in national security affairs.People forget Pelosi has spent so much of her life, so much of her congressional career, part of the group of congressional leaders that are being briefed by the CIA, that are being talked to by the NSA.Pelosi knows national security back to front, and she's saying to herself in that moment, "I need to do something.I need to be in command."

It's not a surprise that Pelosi, who knows these issues, wants to step up.Pelosi is well aware that the nuclear arsenal of the United States is under the command of the president, and she wants to make sure that's under control.She knows the president is unhinged, in her view; has, in her mind, stoked an insurrection.Something needs to be done.

Pelosi, at her core, is a realist who grew up in Baltimore and believes in the country.She believes the country needs to be protected.And she wasn't going to just rail in a partisan way against Trump in the wake of Jan. 6; she was going to do something.She calls Pence.She calls [Gen. Mark] Milley.She's driving the discussion.

That Milley call is chilling in your book.The transcript of it is amazing.Tell me what it says, what she's trying to do, what you're feeling coming off of her as she talks to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the most powerful military figure in the country.

It is an amazing historical moment to be in on the call with Pelosi and Milley.And when you read that transcript, when you hear it spoken aloud, you're taken into a moment of pure crisis in American history.And we watched it unfold, but we didn't know what was happening behind the scenes.

Behind the scenes, Pelosi, as the speaker of the House, is calling the senior officer in the U.S. military and saying, "You'd better be on alert.You'd better be taking control of this situation.Even if you're not directly in the chain of command, even if the president still has all the power, this is a devastating moment.American democracy is on the brink, and this is a national security emergency."

She firmly believes, the transcript shows, that Trump is capable of doing crazy things, things that could disrupt world affairs, U.S. alliances, spark violence.And she wants to take the time to call Milley.She asks Milley to make sure that he's part of any kind of discussion when it comes to a military strike or, even worse, using nuclear weapons, because—since Pelosi is so knowledgeable on national security, she's the one who connects the dots and says, "I just can't stand by and just hope this all works out.It may not work out.Trump may do something or may be prepared to do something that we're not even thinking about."She believes she's a bulwark for the country.She also believes Milley is a bulwark for the country, and she's coordinating with him not to try to take command of the country, to act as president; she's trying, in her view, to save the country from chaos, from democracy unraveling, from a national security emergency.

And the transcript shows Pelosi's urgency.And in the cloudy mess after the insurrection, it's Nancy Pelosi stepping forward and calling Milley around 8 a.m./9 a.m. on Jan. 8, 2021, and saying to Milley, "Sit up.Think through what you're doing.Let's make sure that he doesn't go even further."She's watching Trump.She wants to make sure Milley's watching Trump.

Milley reassures her.Milley says to Pelosi, "Don't worry, Nancy, there are procedures in place."And she says to him, "You'd better make sure they're in place.You have to make sure something crazy doesn't happen."

Pelosi was tested on Jan. 6.Her advisers are hiding under the desk at the Capitol.She is whisked out of the House to go to a secure military location.It was the ultimate moment of rattling a political leader.

But in that crisis mode, she is steely.Pelosi reacts not by just hurling partisan insults at Trump, but by taking command of a national security emergency.The transcript shows it was a national security emergency in the eyes of Milley and in the eyes of Pelosi, and they're watching the executive branch and trying to do something.

Pelosi and Biden

When Biden is inaugurated 14, 10 days later, whenever it was, do you think she believes the existential threat is over in the American government?

Not at all.This is, for Pelosi, this is a rolling, cascading crisis.It didn't end on Jan. 20.Behind the scenes, Jim Clyburn's [D-S.C.] telling her, "Democracy is on fire, Nancy.Democracy's on fire.We need to get voting rights legislation passed."And it's not because they just want to have an agenda to talk about for 2022; they're worried that Republicans out in the states are going to be even more prepared in 2022 and 2024 to take control of American democracy.Pelosi, more than anyone, understands that Republicans now and in the coming months are going to be on the march.Republicans are passing laws in states, getting Trump allies and Steve Bannon allies to run for local election offices.They want to have a better positioning come 2024.

And Pelosi knows we were this close to a democratic crisis, a constitutional crisis in January of 2021.Come January 2025, she does not want this country to be caught off guard again.But she's worried; others around her are worried that not enough is being done.

Some of her critics say she's alarmist; she's ringing the bell too much about American democracy.But Nancy Pelosi's response to each of them is, "You don't understand; the crisis is upon us.It's not something in the future; it's happening now."And she believes House Democrats have to respond with legislation, with Biden's help, or else it's going to get even worse, even darker in the coming elections.

Pelosi and Obama

… The Affordable Care Act: It's really the bringing into Washington of a president, Barack Obama, who is a consensus builder—at least says he is—who is a guy who says, "Bipartisanship is going to be at the heart and soul of what I'm doing."And we see that her role, supermajority, she's advocating to the president, "Hey, with stimulus and other things, let's just do it.Forget about those guys on the other side."

So talk to me a little bit about that dichotomy, the difference between the Democratic speaker of the House and the new president and the idea of partisanship in America in 2008.

Sure.In almost every interview I've conducted with Pelosi, the conversation drifts back into her Catholic faith.Her Catholic faith is the foundational part of her politics.She is a Democrat, but her soul, her whole view on the world is shaped by that Catholic faith, forged by the faith her parents shared with her in Baltimore, and she has carried that into her political career.

…Issues like health care have been motivating Pelosi for her entire career, but her passion for these issues is as much about her Democratic politics as it is her Catholic faith.She comes from the social justice tradition in the Catholic Church, from a working-class, East Coast city in Baltimore, where they went to Mass once a week, likely more than once a week, and helping people, helping the poor was all about being a working-class Democrat in the 1950s and 1960s.And she has carried that ethos throughout her entire career: Help the poor, lift them up, go to Mass; help the poor, lift them up, go to Mass—and also maybe run for office.Politics and faith always intertwined for Nancy Pelosi.

And when she is speaker of the House, she knows that Barack Obama's first big move as president has to be the stimulus to help get the economy jumpstarted and then health care.Help people have insurance, have health care coverage.And she has this passion to get it done in an expansive way.And she's not all about the political transaction.But as much as she's a realist, she always wants to do more, move to the left.Never forget Pelosi comes out of that progressive side of the Democratic Party.

And in 2009, you can detect the tension between Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and Pelosi.Emanuel had come out of Illinois, out of the House of Representatives, knew Pelosi as well as anyone, but he was always calculating what would get done for Obama.Pelosi was trying to say to Obama and Emanuel, "Wait a minute.Let's try to move this a little bit to the left.Let's have a public option."

Ultimately, she's a vote counter as much as anyone.She saw the writing on the wall.They cobbled together Obamacare in its final version.Not everybody in the House Democratic Conference loved it, but she moved it through.

But she was always the person in that debate pulling the lever, saying, "Let's move this to the left if we can.Let's be transformational.Let's not just focus on the win."

How did the Republicans look at her, Bob?She's playing this partisan supermajority role, and social justice role, obviously.She's in some conflict with Rahm and the president of the United States.What do they see when they see Nancy Pelosi as the health care issue is starting to catch on and become something that's going to occupy them and the headlines for a couple years?

…When I would go to dinner with House Republicans in 2009-2010, they would tell me they wanted to make Pelosi a villain.House Republicans confided in me at the time, "Let's make Pelosi a villain; let's make her the target for the 2010 midterms.Let's run against Pelosi, not just against health care.That's our goal.Make Pelosi the enemy."

And if you recall, the House Republicans and the Republican Party put up "Stop Pelosi" signs at campaign events, even at the Republican National Committee.They're putting her at the forefront.

What's interesting is this: House Republicans have told me privately that they are scared of Nancy Pelosi.As much as they like to vilify her, she seems to never go away.They're impressed by her political survivability.She's always in the trenches.She loves to throw a punch.So they see her, even if they despise her, as an able political foil, as someone they have to watch, who can get beat and stay around, can hold her party together.

There's a cold appreciation for who she is and what she's accomplished on the Republican side, because they know, as much as anyone, surviving in House politics is very difficult.Even some of the great political warriors in modern times in the House, like Newt Gingrich, they get eaten alive by their own parties eventually.Pelosi just moves forward, keeps her coalition, brings in new people, keeps others around.They're impressed by her.This is a survivor.

I think there's something about the conflict with Obama through this time that … was really surprising to me in the sense that—and I guess it goes to the question of, is Pelosi—is there something about the way that she knows about legislative politics, how you get it done, how you count votes, how you handle your caucus that he doesn't understand, that he's too naïve, too inexperienced, too determined to get along with Republicans to get things done that she doesn't believe in at all?

I would pause there.That's a really important point.That's a great insight, Michael, because Pelosi's whole approach to negotiation is, first and foremost make sure your party is with you, that you have consensus in the party.She has worked harder than anyone throughout her career to talk to Democrats first, to build a Democratic position.And it's only when the Democrats are fully together, as much as possible, do you start to have the overture to the moderates or the Republicans.

And that approach has enabled her to keep the trust of Democrats.She's not a politician who just calls Mitch McConnell or calls another Republican and starts cutting deals at the top.Politics for Nancy Pelosi, especially in the House, is bottom up, not top down.Now, she runs the House Democrats with an iron first.She's tough.You don't want to get on her bad side.

But when it comes to negotiations, she is always bottom up.Get consensus among the rank and file.That to her is the ultimate leverage in a negotiation, rather than trying to be someone who cuts a deal and then sells it to her members.

And when you get in and you start looking really closely at what happened during the ACA, especially after Scott Brown wins up in Massachusetts, she's got the progressives who want the public option—"Come on, we've got to go for the public option; this is our grand chance"; she's got the moderates who want other things to happen. …So the story, much to my surprise after all these years, in going back and looking at it, is that the ACA battles were not really with the Republicans; they were with and inside the Democratic Party and the White House versus Nancy Pelosi.

That's exactly right.I was with Scott Brown in Boston on the night he won, and I can still remember the Democrats.You could feel the air go out of the room for a lot of Democrats, that this was something totally out of left field, unexpected.A Republican winning Teddy Kennedy's Senate seat?What the heck is happening?And the reaction was immediate in Washington."We have to adjust," some Democrats said."We've got to slim this whole thing down; let's try to have a smaller deal."

Pelosi's watching the Democratic reaction to Scott Brown and saying, "Whoa, hold up.I've been moving this ball in a progressive direction for months.I'm not going to suddenly pick it up just because I'm rattled or scared by Scott Brown's victory."This is where Pelosi's different than a lot of other Democrats.She's got a coolness to her political temperature where she doesn't immediately react to things.When big things, small things happen, Pelosi, almost to a T, holds her ground, waits to see what happens.But other Democrats at the time are saying, "We've got to just move this through.The political tide's coming against us because of Scott Brown."

And I remember in Boston, on the night Scott Brown won, Republicans turned to me up at his event and said, "Obamacare is dead."There was a belief that Republicans were going to stop this in its tracks and that this whole thing would fall apart.Democrats, understandably, said, "We have to react to what's happening in Massachusetts."But Pelosi's interesting because she goes, "I'm not going to somehow start being alarmed about this.I'm not going to go wild and say, 'Let's have a different kind of deal.'" And that steadiness is so key to who she is.

But that was a crossroads because inside the Obama White House, they know this is the signature legislation for his first term, perhaps even his presidency, and they don't want Scott Brown, this random state senator from Massachusetts, to rupture the entire thing.And Rahm Emanuel, if anything, is a tactician, and he's reading all of this and saying, "We've just got to move.Move, move, move."

And there is a showdown in the Oval Office among all these leaders with the president, and they come to a head and say, "We've got to just keep this going, maybe get rid of the public option."But Pelosi knows the heart and soul of the Democratic Party are the rank-and-file members in the House.Those are the people closest to Democratic voters, and she doesn't want to just immediately move away from them because of Scott Brown.

And one of the great counterfactuals for history would be, what happens if the Democrats keep the public option in?What if the bill was a little bit more progressive?What would the long-term implications be?And Pelosi, she is always thinking about history.It's not just about reacting to the time; it's about achieving as much of the progressive agenda when you have political capital.

Pelosi recognized that Scott Brown winning was unhelpful, but it did not destroy the Democrats' political capital.The Democrats still had pretty solid majorities.And why not just run through what you could do?

Pelosi’s Leadership Style

Let me ask you this one last question on that point: How does she do it?How can she hold them together?Because, boy, what a fractious group the Democratic Caucus is.We can talk about the Republicans, too, in a minute as they kind of become a completely different thing, and Republican establishment leaders, [John] Boehner and others, [Eric] Cantor, they feel the ground shifting under them.She is in there with her caucus.How does she do it, Bob?

She is the most old-school politician I have ever covered, and I mean that in a complimentary way.Pelosi is the most old-school politician I have ever covered.You talk to almost any House Democrat, even some House Republicans; they all have gotten handwritten notes from Nancy Pelosi about personal events, political events, gifts, flowers.She is someone who is constantly scanning the political horizon in the community of the House of Representatives and American politics and realizing the personal dynamics, the political dynamics and making sure her fingerprints, her touch is on the people who matter, on her rank-and-file members.She's always keeping tabs on what is happening.Almost nothing escapes Pelosi.

And people will say, "I didn't even tell Pelosi about this event in my life, but I get a wonderful card from her about it," because when she hears about something, she'll mentally note it, and she'll make sure a note is sent, a gift is sent.And it sounds almost small-bore, but all of this adds up.

And the eternal image I will always have of Pelosi in my mind is the speaker of the House in a room when I pass her in the hallway or on a plane when I see her flying to San Francisco, with a phone in her ear, talking to members.She never stops talking on the phone to members.Always on the phone, and when she's not on the phone, she's writing them handwritten notes.

These are the things that keep a political coalition and a political career from crumbling, especially at the toughest times.

Republicans Campaign Against Pelosi

The Republicans, on the other hand, decide she's the enemy.We're now in 2010, Bob, and you've already mentioned it a little bit.Let's go into a little more detail: $70 million, 131,000 advertisements or something, not the Democratic president of the United States, but the Democratic speaker of the House.They make her the poster child.They create the website.They really go after her, and they raise hundreds of millions of dollars based on Evil Nancy.It's a brilliant strategy in lots of ways for the Republicans.How did they come to that?How did they arrive at Nancy Pelosi being the talisman for evil and bad, especially at that juncture for the Republican Party?

There were several meetings inside of the highest levels of the Republican Party about how to frame the 2010 midterms, and there was a conclusion: Make it about Pelosi.Running against the first Black president has its problems in 2010 for Republicans.You don't want to just make it about Obama, but if they can make it about a woman who's a San Francisco liberal, in their view, that's what they were going to do.They saw Pelosi as a soft political target—a woman, a liberal, from San Francisco.Make her seem like she's the elite and just run against San Francisco elite liberals and paint the entire party with that brush.

That was the play.It wasn't a complicated play.They poured tens of millions of dollars into campaigns about stopping Nancy Pelosi.They made her not just a caricature, but they made her a villain.

Pelosi has the thickest skin in American politics.She took it all in stride and said, "Bring it on.Bring it on."And she loses the House, but she stays in power inside the Democratic Party and says to her members, "This is a tough loss.They ran against me, and they won, but we are going to come back.I'm going to put my foot to the pedal and make sure we fundraise as much money as possible for 2012.We're going to make sure Obama keeps the White House, and we're going to come back in the House at some point."

It was a journey; it took many years.But her message to them was, "Let's not give up."And she said to the progressives, "Remember, I was with you at the start; I'm going to be with you at the end.So in this moment of a political reckoning, don't abandon me.I'm going to stick with you.

Let's keep the Democratic Party in the House on the left, because there's going to be a lot of temptation to drift toward the center: 'Oh, we lost; it's time to have new leadership; time to have more centrist leadership.'"Part of why Pelosi's able to stay in power is she says to the progressives who are still there, "I will never abandon you.And remember who fought for you even when everyone was saying this was the wrong move for 2010."And it's that sense of mission that keeps Pelosi alive politically.

Pelosi and Trump

During her time in the wilderness, this guy named Donald Trump is rising.And part of why he's rising is Nancy Pelosi.He can point to her; he can point to the establishment; he can point to all the things that apparently, from what you're telling me and what we can see are true about her.She does go into smoke-filled rooms.She does close the door and cut deals.She is out there raising copious amounts of money.She does unabashedly bring money into politics in the American political system.And Trump, even if he doesn't mention her constantly, she's in the background for everything as he's rising.He's got birtherism, he's got race, he's got the other things.But he's also got Pelosi and backroom-deal kind of politics.Talk about that a little bit, will you, Robert?

… Pelosi's version of Democratic politics is to make sure the Democratic working class stays Democratic.Trump has a siren song to those voters on immigration, on trade, and Trump essentially takes the Democratic position on trade and says to those voters, "Come along with me."Pelosi and other top Democrats were caught off guard, that Donald Trump, the celebrity real estate magnate, he was somehow going to steal the Democratic working-class voter away on trade?It sounded absurd at first.

And even Pelosi was one of the voices saying, "This can't really happen.Donald Trump, this country would never elect someone like Donald Trump."But she had to react once he got elected.

But what's so interesting is that Pelosi's antenna is as good as anyone's in American politics.But even Pelosi during the rise of Trump didn't take it that seriously.Eventually she does, when he's the nominee, but Donald Trump just seemed so far off, not part of the norm of American politics, that Pelosi was much more positioned to fight a Jeb Bush or a Rick Perry in 2016 than a Donald Trump in a general election.

When he gets elected, there is a meeting, and she goes as a member of the leadership of the Democrats.Everybody's there—Mitch, all of them, Bannon.And he positions himself, the way the story goes, across from her so that he can watch her.She seems to have a star after her name from their point of view, somebody to worry about, somebody to watch.And as Trump is doing his Trump thing, she basically calls BS on him in some moment about, he's talking about the election was stolen from him, the popular election; he really won the popular election.She pipes up, "That's not true."

To us, it almost feels like that's a sea change in our politics in the country.There he is; there she is.There's the clash.There's Bannon sitting here saying, "Watch out for her.She's an assassin," he says.Tell me about that, Bob.And is this a central moment in our politics where things that had been happening are finally happening all right out in the open?

In the final weeks of the 2016 campaign, I interviewed Donald Trump, and behind the scenes I brought up Pelosi, and he said, "She's tough, she's tough."Tough to Donald Trump, that's a compliment.He saw her as her own political brand and someone who brought a tough political persona and standing into the job.When Trump's elected, he keeps an eye on Pelosi.

McConnell, Schumer, these are Senate leaders of note to Trump, people he thinks he can perhaps roll over, but Pelosi, he has watched her for years, had interactions with her.He doesn't know what to really make of how she'll handle Trump.She's certainly not trying to ingratiate herself with him, and she's ready to fight him.

In a strange way, Trump clearly respects Pelosi politically, more than perhaps anyone else on Capitol Hill.It doesn't mean he likes her, but he recognizes her stature, recognizes her power.Just like Trump coming back from bankruptcies, coming out of nowhere to win the presidency, he sees Pelosi as someone who has been up and down, up and down, and she's still there.

Donald Trump in almost an animalistic, political way recognizes Pelosi as someone he has to contend with, has to respect.

He doesn't give her a nickname, Bob.He gives every woman, every man a nickname.That, I guess, is the proof of what you're saying.There's a kind of grudging, or maybe not even grudging respect.

And remember, Donald Trump cuts many deals with Pelosi during the course of his presidency.These are not agreeable deals.There's not a friendly handshake at the White House.There's no signing ceremony.But on spending, on fiscal deals, it's often Pelosi and Trump who come together and say, "We can get this passed.Let's just collapse our standoff and come up with a deal at the 11th hour."

They don't like each other, but they are transactional political leaders who recognize that at the end of the day they can get a few things done.And Pelosi can't stand Trump morally, politically, but she's still speaker of the House, and she deals with him.She doesn't like to talk to him, she doesn't want to call him, but if it's necessary to keep the country functioning, she'll work with him.

The 2018 midterm.Pelosi creates a strategy that says we're not going to talk about him.We're not going to run against Trump.That's her big plan.Why do you think they didn't go all out against Trump?

Pelosi's clever.She says, "Let's suffocate the Republicans from their main issue, Trump."The defensiveness of Trump, making Trump the issue, it distracts from the Democrats' agenda of health care, economic issues.Pelosi says to her members, "We're going to focus like a laser on health care, on the economy, on kitchen-table issues.When Trump is brought up by a rival candidate, bring it back to health care.If Trump starts tweeting at you, bring it back to health care."

She recognizes that Democrats are so easily distracted by the fervor and hurricane that is Donald Trump, and that if you start engaging with that too much politically, you're never talking about the issues that actually make you a winner.And she made sure there was discipline in the ranks in 2018.

She told her members, "We have a path back to power, but it's not by fighting the political monster in Washington.It's about reminding voters why they actually like the Democrats."It's not because they see the Democrats as the foil to Trump, these warriors against Donald Trump; that's not of interest to many voters.They want to know, what are you going to do for them?

It's Nancy Pelosi, the Baltimore Democrat, not really the San Francisco liberal but the Baltimore Democrat, who realizes, "We need to remind working-class voters that we're on their side."That’s what 2018 was about.She got the working class animated again about Democratic issues, not about Donald Trump.

What does it reveal about American politics that the Democrats won that election, Bob?

It revealed that populism on the Republican side could only carry them so far.Donald Trump's celebrity and overwhelming personality could win him the White House, but it didn't mean the rest of the party was going to get power as part of the trappings of Trump's ascent.

2018 is evidence that the Democratic Party is alive and well in American politics; that while anti-establishment fervor in the Democratic Party and Republican Party can have spurts of success, at the end of the day it's still red versus blue, a Democratic Party that advocates for an expansion of health care, for higher taxes to pay for social programs, to be an advocate for the working class versus a Republican Party that in many ways is still very business-friendly.Despite the Trump tangents on trade and immigration and foreign policy, it is still in many respects a country-club Republican Party.

Nancy Pelosi's whole approach in 2018 was to reframe the debate, to take it away from Trump and bring the spotlight back onto the Republican Party that was hiding behind Trump's shadow.Trump was always out front, but behind him was still a Republican Party that was nominating conservatives onto the Supreme Court, trying to cut taxes for businesses and workers.This was Paul Ryan's Republican Party, Kevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnell's Republican Party.

Nancy Pelosi realized that wasn't being talked about enough, so she wanted to reframe and reignite Democratic politics.

Division in the Democratic Party

Now, the way the politics game or the political game goes, with every good thing, there's also a bad thing.And the bad thing for Pelosi was, after their victory, there's an insurgency against her in her own party.The moderates aren't at all happy with her.The progressives wish she had been a lot more progressive.She's got a fire burning inside her own party.What's happening there?

I did a lot of reporting on this.… There is a push to get her out of there.Even though she carried them back to power, some House Democrats privately meet in the days after the election and say, "Hey, we have an opening here.Maybe we can get someone else to step in," because there is a little bit of jealousy, unhappiness that while she is a powerful figure they respect, some House Democrats think it's enough.She is so powerful, she has been there for so long, we just need new leadership.

…But Pelosi pulls a lot of these rivals into her office.Instead of fighting them publicly, she confronts them privately, and she says to them, "Do you understand what the job of a speaker is?"They'll go, "No, we don't really know."She said, "You have to work seven days a week, 24 hours a day, raising money, tens of millions of dollars, having meetings, talking to donors, talking to voters, talking to candidates.Do you really understand that?Do you really know what the job is?"And one by one, these rivals, these possible contenders, they fall away.

Pelosi realizes and reminds people, she's the only one who really wants to have this job.And if you want to come at her, have at it, but recognize who you're coming at and the kind of job you're actually seeking.

And the other thing about Tim Ryan, the group in the House that's most unhappy with Pelosi is the moderates.They're spoiling for a fight with her because they know she keeps the progressives at the center of House Democratic politics, but they don't have much of a case against her.Yes, she's liberal, but that's actually what keeps her in power, what keeps her popular.The moderate rebellion, if you want to call it that, it fizzles; it fails.They don't have the votes; they don't have the standing; they don't really have an argument.New leadership, that will take you only so far in a place like the House Democratic Conference. …

So now we're at what we call the red-coat moment.She's in trouble with her—especially the moderates.Schumer gets invited over.He drags her along with him.They're in the Oval Office, and Trump says to the press crews, "Stay there.Stay here.Let's watch this."And they have—

Trump's being a producer, a television producer.He wants the drama.He wants the spectacle.

This is so true.And they have it out right there.And she keeps saying to him, "Mr. President, just get these guys out of the room, and we'll talk."And he wants them to stay; as you say, he's the producer, and she's the apprentice.Anyway, away they go.And the result, of course, is the result.She comes out, and suddenly what was the thing about Nancy Pelosi that everybody hated—backroom arguments, the scold, the arguer-in-chief, the whatever—suddenly she's heroic.It's something about our culture.It's something about the way she finally stands up to Trump.… What does it say about our politics at that moment, that a woman who goes in, in trouble with her own caucus after all she's done, comes out, puts on a red coat and a pair of sunglasses and has scolded the president, and now she's firmly in charge of her caucus again?

It's a scene I'll never forget.Pelosi is an inside player; she wants to have an inside discussion with the president, have a negotiation, get the cameras out of there.But when Trump says to her, "Keep the cameras in," you can tell Pelosi's thinking to herself, if you want theater, I'll give you theater.And she stands up and points her finger at Trump, and she takes command of the room.

That's Pelosi.She didn't want the standoff, but if Trump wants it, she'll have it.And she used the moment to help herself politically, to show Trump is the one with his arms crossed, angry and petulant.She was going to be the one driving the debate.And it's Pelosi with her instincts always reacting and responding not with fear, but driving right back at her enemy, politically, right back at the other side.Relentless.Tough.

What does that say about our politics at that moment, Bob?What does it say?

Hmm.Our politics has—drama is everything now in American politics.Made for television.Pelosi doesn't love it, but she accepts it.

So she prevails, gets to keep her job.But that doesn't mean that caucus isn't bitterly divided.And the divide is about Trump.They want to impeach him, and the progressives, for sure.And she's been protecting the matter.She doesn't want it to happen.She's been holding off on it.And then a new group from the progressives rises up, starts with the night of the election when one of the members [Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.)] says, "Impeach the mother---er."And it's been going—it was going that way for a long time.

Let's just talk for a minute about the difference between the women in the Squad and Nancy Pelosi, their speaker, who also thinks of herself as a liberal progressive, should have some kinship with them—they're all females; they've all fought the fight to get in power.

I mean, that's such an important point.I mean, Pelosi looks at the Squad and is almost perplexed: "You are going to outflank me on the left?I am the left."Her whole career has been being the beating heart of the left in Congress, in California, so she thinks it's almost strange that these new lawmakers are suddenly saying Pelosi's a moderate, the establishment.Pelosi wakes up every day and thinks of herself as a progressive who's been through the battles, wins and losses; she's been through it all.And she doesn't like being called out by the left because she believes she is the left.So it seems inappropriate to Pelosi for progressives to be complaining so stridently all the time that she's not doing enough, because she believes she's doing everything possible within the political reality.

There is anger and tension with these new members.They see themselves as part of a new generation, inspired not by Nancy Pelosi but by Bernie Sanders.They want to see wholesale change in American politics, not just transformation when it comes to health care legislation.They want to see the entire economy transformed.And this is something Pelosi has not had to contend with for much of her career.There's always been a bit of a streak of Democratic socialism in the Democratic Party, but it, for years, for decades was on the fringe.

By 2018, the flickering flame of Democratic socialism has become a bonfire, at least on the left side of the party.Bernie Sanders has built that fire and wants his movement to continue to grow.Some of his acolytes, like Rashida Tlaib, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are elected to the House, and they are not there to sit on their hands and nod and smile as Nancy Pelosi lays out the agenda.They want to fight Trump, they want to fight the Republicans, and they want to take on the special interests and the business interests that have long supported Democrats.That's the change.They want to not only fight the GOP but fight a lot of the stakeholders in the Democratic Party.

Pelosi sees and explains, probably not generously, the difference between hard power, what she has, and soft power, which is what 5 million Instagram followers may have for somebody.It seems like it's come down to that old-school, we're back to the Baltimore machine now.This is how you do it: count votes, cut deals, close the door, light up a cigarette or a cigar, get it done.And that's not how you guys are working.It's not influence; it's power, and I have it.

… Pelosi is not that impressed by soft power, by your Instagram following, by millions of followers on Twitter.She cares about one thing: How many votes can you bring to this bill?Or how much money can you raise for the Democratic Party?Hard power.Hard money.Hard votes.That's how she sees politics.

The other side of it, about personality, about being a great orator or being a social media sensation, it's nice.She's fine with all of it if you're helping her or the Democratic agenda.But sometimes her true colors show on this.It flashes publicly that she doesn't really care if someone's popular on social media.If they're just worth one vote, that's how she sees them, at least politically.That's one vote, even if it has an enormous following, even if that person has an enormous following.

By summer, the caucus is split on itself between, obviously, the moderates and the Squad.So the caucus is in the middle of it, too.Big, deep divisions inside the party.Then our president at the time, Donald Trump, decides to get in the game.He attacks the Squad, and he makes this telephone call to Ukraine, and in effect, Trump himself unites the caucus.Talk a little bit about that division in the caucus and then what Trump does that unites the caucus.

Anyone who knows Pelosi knows that from day one of the Trump presidency, she has been outraged by him.She finds him unseemly, gross even, politically speaking, someone who has no faith in American institutions, in American politics.But despite all that, Pelosi has always resisted moving toward impeachment.But eventually, she can't hold that ground.As much as she wants to focus on economics and focus on health care, Donald Trump's conduct pushes her to the brink, and she has to make a decision.Is she going to bless the idea of beginning impeachment proceedings?

Donald Trump's call with Volodymyr Zelensky pushes her over the line, and she had held that line for longer than almost anybody in the Democratic Party.As much as she despises Trump, she's telling her members, "Let's not get pulled into an impeachment fight.That's what the Republicans want.They want us talking about Trump.They want to make Trump the victim.Let's not give them that."But Trump, because of what he does, because of how he phrases things on the call, it makes it impossible for Pelosi to hold onto her position.

She would love to see Trump out.From early on, she would like to see Trump out of that office.But she doesn't move toward impeachment because she's making a political decision that it's not right for the Democrats to become consumed by getting rid of Trump.Beat him at the ballot box.

At the time, he comes to the Capitol building to do the State of the Union address.She goes.She's grateful to him, I suppose, at one level because he's united her caucus.She's gotten behind that and led that unification.She knows he's going to win in the Senate.But nonetheless, she's powerful again.… But at the end, Bob, as we all famously know, she tears the damn thing in half.What is that?What's happening there?Is that a different Nancy Pelosi than we've been talking about?Has she finally lost it?Has he finally gotten through?Has he gotten under her skin?What are we witnessing there at that moment, Bob?

When you see her tear up those sheets of paper, you are seeing the real Nancy Pelosi.That is Nancy Pelosi.She is not holding back.She is playing for history: "I'm the one taking on Trump right to his face, tearing up his speech.He has no respect for this country"—in her view—"he doesn't respect the Constitution, and I don't have any respect for his remarks and his exaggerated claims and his lies."

That's her position that night, and that's her position for the rest of the Trump presidency: Take him on.And as much as her tactic at times is to be reserved with a soft touch, from that day on, she is about punching Trump in the mouth politically.Take him on.Rip up his agenda.Rip up his remarks.She doesn't care, because at that point, Trump has gone beyond where she can deal with him.He is outside of the norm, and she's just not going to play along in any way.

2021.Jan. 6 has happened.Biden is inaugurated.Pelosi's elected speaker again.Now with the Democrats in the Senate, in the House and in the White House, how does Nancy Pelosi at the beginning of 2021 think about things?What's going to happen now in her mind?

I wrote a lot about this with [Bob] Woodward for Peril.Pelosi is in Biden's ear, whispering to her old friend, "Go big.Go big.And instead of having some kind of bipartisan deal with McConnell to start your presidency, pass something that's nearly $2 trillion.Get the country's economy moving.Have a spending package that's massive pass."Biden listens to Pelosi, and he decides to go big: $1.9 trillion.Pelosi ushers it through the House.She wants to help Biden get off to a strong start.

What's really interesting is that unlike 2009, when she barely had a relationship with Obama, Biden comes in with a deep, longstanding relationship with Pelosi.He knows Pelosi; he knows Schumer.And this is a trio at the very top that's in sync: We're going to go big on a rescue plan, we're going to address the pandemic, and we're not going to pull back in terms of our ambitions on spending.We're going to set the tone from the start.

Pelosi also is connected to Biden through faith.Two Roman Catholics in the later stage of their political careers with a progressive strain now through their political lives—they are bonded personally; they are bonded politically.

… Going back on what we did around ACA and the meeting, the original meeting in the White House, some people have talked—it's been reported that Pelosi boxed Obama in.They're in that meeting.She basically says … "OK, you can go big, and I will fight for it, and I will make it happen.You can go small, but then I'm not going to be involved."She basically boxes him in.Talk a little bit about that part of her hard sell and that part of her relationship with Obama….

Pelosi wants to help this new president, the first Black president of the United States, someone who shares her progressive ideals.But at the end of the day, Pelosi says to Obama in that meeting, "Remember who I am loyal to first and foremost: House Democrats."And who's the base?Who really matters in House Democratic politics?The progressives.That's her political base.That's what—that's the group that animates the whole House Democratic agenda.

And she's reminding Obama in that meeting, "You can't just come in here and believe the House is going to follow you blindly.We have our own dynamics.We have our own community down Pennsylvania Avenue.Never forget that we are our own world.All of us are allies, but I'm a House Democrat fighting for House Democrats first, then working to help a Democratic president.But it's always Democrats in the House have to be my priority."And she's not just going to walk away.

And she's saying to Obama, "Remember, you were in the legislature in Illinois.You were in the U.S. Senate, but you were never a member of the U.S. House.This is its own world, and I just can't tell them what to do.These are hundreds of lawmakers that I have to keep together, and I know what keeps them together is the idea that we're really pushing hard for a big bill on health care."

And she's smart in that she's playing off of Rahm Emanuel.She knows Obama has picked a moderate House Democrat from Illinois to be at his side, and so she's trying to make sure that that impulse is not guiding the whole debate.

On Jan. 6, just one thing, she's got the majority.Georgia's just been decided the day before.She goes in there, some people have told us, in a pretty good mood.She knows they're in a good situation.They've got majorities.What's her view going into that day and then how it changes when she gavels the House in session, and soon after it becomes apparent that something is going on outside that is going to change all that?

Pelosi begins Jan.6 in great spirits.The Democrats are on the move, winning two Senate seats in Georgia.Biden's about to take the presidency.House Democrats have the majority.This is looking like it's going to be close to 2009 all over again.

As the Democrats come into the Capitol that day, they go up to Pelosi in an upbeat way.They're in good spirits.Democrats have power, are gaining more power.And they're annoyed by the Republicans; they find the whole experience of the objection to the certification to be a charade.They're complaining to Pelosi behind the scenes what a waste of time this is, but they think it's a charade; it's political theater.

But she is stunned.They are stunned when they realize later in the day that this is not theater.This is an insurrection.It's a crossroads for Pelosi, from being so happy about Democratic success in Georgia to suddenly realizing this country's in a national security emergency that she has to address.The Democratic good feeling of the day falls away for the time being.It's put on a shelf, because Pelosi realizes, when she's over at this military location, that she has to now contend with a president who could be collapsing.

It ties to what you're talking about in 2021 and Biden, that she's pushing to go big in his ear.2021, what's at stake?Pelosi knows, number one, the clock is ticking down for her and her career, but it's also possibly ticking down for the Democrats as the next midterm elections are coming around.So her attitude is, you've got to win big, and you've got to do it quick.Just define that element of it.

Sure.Pelosi knows that if the Democrats don't get Biden's agenda through as soon as possible, the voters who are out there in some of these states could drift back toward the Republicans; that American democracy is on the line.The stakes are so big, and Pelosi knows it, that the Democrats have to keep working-class and middle-class voters with them, or else the nationalism, the incendiary populism, sometimes even the racism of Republican candidates is going to have appeal to voters.

Pelosi knows Democrats have to get stuff done so they can make the case in 2022 that they're on the side of the working class and the middle class.They don't want to see someone like Trump, or Trump himself, come back.

Pelosi knows if the Democrats fail to secure a lasting middle-class and working-class coalition, American democracy itself could be on the line in 2024.2022 is all about solidifying the Democratic Party so Republicans can't come back with Donald Trump and push the entire system once again to the brink.

The relationship with Trump where he starts with a grudging respect and ends up with "Crazy Nancy" after impeachment: How does the relationship between President Trump and Speaker Pelosi change over that year?

She's watching him in that first year, and she sees a total outsider, someone who barely understands how Congress works.And she wonders, how is this all going to play out?She doesn't trust him.She doesn't like him.But she has a little bit of an open mind.Maybe if he's not an ideological conservative, maybe he'll come our way; maybe we can cut some deals with him, get something in with him on a big issue.So she's always political in thinking through, maybe he could be helpful to us.

But again and again Trump tests her.Trump shows that he's not willing to work in any kind of good faith with Democrats.And so she just moves away from Trump, and she loses any faith in the idea that he's someone she can work with.

The relationship erodes, and it erodes pretty quickly in 2017.By 2018, there's almost no trust there.There's no relationship.Trump doesn't try to build a relationship with her.She doesn't want a relationship with him.There's no trust.But at least in the early days, there was a sense that maybe this total outsider would decide to move in a nonideological direction.

Pelosi watches as Trump comes in.And what does Trump do?She sees Trump work in lockstep with McConnell and Ryan to get what they want done, and she sees that he doesn't have much of an ideology himself, but he's enabling the Republican ideology, and she's disgusted by it.

Does he take impeachment personally?There's reports that they don't even talk after they go down that path.

Impeachment chops the relationship in half.If there was any thread left, it's gone after impeachment.Trump takes it personally.His whole brand is to be someone who's somehow outside of the American political norm, who's a political star, and by having impeachment on his résumé, on his political résumé, she's sullying his brand.Trump believes she is deliberately sullying not only his presidency, but his personal brand.He can't stand it.He tells his advisers he doesn't want to work with Pelosi anymore; she's crazy.And that's when the whole relationship goes from sour to dark.The relationship from then on is truly dark.Every time Trump's asked about Pelosi publicly, he says she's despicable; he rails against her mental acuity.Every name in the book is hurled at Pelosi by Trump. …

We've watched over all the films and interviews we've done with you, the Republican Party splinter and the leadership struggle to control their base.Pelosi has done a lot to try to keep her caucus together.What's the future if she moves on, if this is her last time in office?What is she leaving behind?What is the future for the party?Or what will it mean if she's not the speaker?

The future of the Democratic Party is an open question if Nancy Pelosi's not part of it.If she retires, if she steps away, you are losing the fulcrum of Democratic politics.She has been the thing, the person that keeps it all together, the Bernie movement with the moderates, everybody working in tandem in the complicated world of the House of Representatives.

Democratic unity just doesn't happen.It has to be preserved, protected, and Pelosi is the person who does that.If she's gone, TBD on whether that is all sustainable, because she understands in a granular way how to keep power alive, how to keep people together.

At this moment, I don't see as a reporter anyone out there in the Democratic Party who has her talent for doing the complicated job of leading the party in the House and keeping an emerging, evolving Democratic Party together.

It's going to be a challenge for President Biden and for the rest of the party in a post-Pelosi world.What is a post-Pelosi world in the Democratic Party?No one in the Democratic Party really wants to answer that question because they know that she has held it together.

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