MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Nancy Pelosi has been in the room where it happened for decades. She was at the U.S. Capitol the morning of 9/11. Fast-forward 20 years, and she was in the speaker's chair on January 6, 2021. Police yanked her from the platform so quickly, she didn't have a chance to grab her phone as rioters broke into the Capitol. Well, Speaker Emerita Pelosi writes about all this in her new book, "The Art Of Power." When she came to talk with me about it here at NPR headquarters, she was projecting power in a bright yellow pantsuit, matching 4-inch bright yellow stilettos. We talked about women and power and her faith. And she told me about another terrifying moment - when the world was on the brink of a global financial meltdown.
It's September 2008. You know that there's turmoil on Wall Street. You know that two giant banks have just collapsed. You called the Treasury secretary to ask for a briefing. Can you briefly tell me what happened when you get Hank Paulson on the phone?
NANCY PELOSI: Yeah. What happened was that - just to put it in a further context - the secretary of the Treasury, Hank Paulson at the time, was very attentive in briefing the speaker of the House on issues that related to credit markets and this - global markets and the rest on a regular basis.
So I called him. It was 3 o'clock. I looked at my watch. It was 3 o'clock exactly. I thought, this is a little pushy, but Mr. Secretary, we haven't been briefed. Can you come 9 o'clock tomorrow morning to brief not just me, but the Democratic leadership? He said, Madam Speaker - that's how he spoke - tomorrow morning will be too late. So I said, well, why am I calling you? Why am I calling you? Tomorrow morning will be too late. But what he described on the phone was a meltdown from hell. I thought it might be one bank or another and something that was containable, but it was not. It was a...
KELLY: It was all the banks.
PELOSI: ...Meltdown from hell.
KELLY: It was everything.
PELOSI: So then I said, well, I was going to call. We'd had the meeting that night. I think we were going to have it, like, at 5 o'clock, just a couple hours later. And I would call Ben, the chairman of the Fed, to be there.
KELLY: Ben Bernanke.
PELOSI: And then, echoing some other things you've heard, the White House said, who said she could have the meeting? (Laughter) Poor babies. I said, well, tell them the speaker said she could have the meeting.
KELLY: (Laughter).
PELOSI: They could invite whomever they want, but we're having the meeting at the Capitol. We wanted to run the meeting, right?
KELLY: You would be running the meeting.
PELOSI: Well, the - bipartisan - but, you know, it was turned into a bipartisan meeting.
KELLY: Is that - that's the same meeting where Ben Bernanke, chair of the Fed, said, if you - Congress - don't pass legislation immediately, quote, "we won't have an economy by Monday"?
PELOSI: Yeah. If you don't...
KELLY: And it was - what?
PELOSI: If we don't act immediately, we won't...
KELLY: This was on a Thursday?
PELOSI: Yeah, this is a Thursday night. When we had the meeting, I deferred to the secretary of the Treasury to brief the members there much of what he told me, but even more. And then I yielded to Ben Bernanke to say, Mr. Chairman, what do you think of what the secretary had to say? And that's when he said, if we don't act immediately, we may not have an economy by Monday - no commercial paper, nothing. Now, this is Thursday night. That's Monday.
KELLY: Long story short, you all did pass legislation.
PELOSI: Eventually.
KELLY: We do still have an economy - happily - today. But as you yourself write in the book, there's still a lingering question as to why no one on Wall Street paid a price...
PELOSI: No price.
KELLY: ...For damage done to Main Street. I have to ask you - Democrats were in charge.
PELOSI: No, we weren't.
KELLY: Why did no one...
PELOSI: The president of the United States...
KELLY: ...Pay the price?
PELOSI: ...Was a Republican.
KELLY: Do Democrats bear some responsibility?
PELOSI: No. The president of the United States was a Republican. The policy was springing from the White House. However, we paid a price because we were part of the solution.
KELLY: Well, and so did Americans, as you well know. The final legislation did not include foreclosure relief for homeowners, which is something...
PELOSI: No, it did.
KELLY: ...Your caucus wanted.
PELOSI: It allowed for that, but the administration did not go forward with it.
KELLY: And I'll just...
PELOSI: And that was...
KELLY: ...Come at you one more time on this 'cause that famous line, the banks being too big to fail...
PELOSI: Yeah.
KELLY: ...And you write in the book, too big to fail should not mean too big to jail.
PELOSI: That's right.
KELLY: With the benefit of hindsight, should you have pushed harder for consequences for banks that...
PELOSI: No. There was no way.
KELLY: ...That behaved recklessly to be held accountable?
PELOSI: When we did the - you would be surprised to know that when we had the commission to study this - chaired by Phil Angelides, the former treasurer in California - when they were doing their report, the Republicans said, can we take out words like Wall Street, regulation? No. They wanted to take those words out. They did not want to put anything at the doorstep of Wall Street, but not one person paid any price.
We bailed out our economy. The public said we bailed out Wall Street. Well, we didn't. We bailed out the economy, but nonetheless, Wall Street. Now, we wrote the bill in a way that - and you have to read the book because it's too much to go into it here - we wrote the bill in a way that we would get paid back.
KELLY: Right. Let me bring us toward a close by asking this. It's about the long view. You were in Congress as the Soviet Union collapsed.
PELOSI: Yeah.
KELLY: You were in Congress...
PELOSI: Yeah.
KELLY: ...When 9/11 happened, January 6, 2021.
PELOSI: Yeah.
KELLY: Set against all of that, how do you view this moment in our democracy - how fraught, how dangerous?
PELOSI: If you take it to January 6 until now, January 6 was an assault on our Constitution. Our peaceful transfer of power is spelled out in the law as to how we would accept the results of the electoral college. It is against what our founders had in mind for a democracy. It is against what our men and women in uniform fought for for our freedom.
So I see this election as very critical to who we are as a nation - the character of America, democracy. And they may not like hearing that, but I don't like what they're saying either. And what they're - the assault that they are making on - no one is above the law. That's been what America has been about, except if you're Donald Trump.
KELLY: When you say they, you're talking about who? Republicans?
PELOSI: Yeah. I'm talking...
KELLY: People who support Trump?
PELOSI: ...About the cult that the Republican Party has become - a cult to a thug. And that thug would be Donald Trump. So I wish they'd take back their part of - the country needs a strong Republican Party. It has had a strong Republican Party with great leaders for America. And that is really not what we're seeing there. It's up to them, though.
KELLY: Given all that, you're still confident, still have the faith that Congress can get stuff done?
PELOSI: Well we have to win. Not this Congress. We're in recess this week because they can't pass a rule to bring up legislation. They have their own problems internally, and they're taking us on a path that is so sad in terms of what the Republican Party has been about in our country - a party founded by Abraham Lincoln. Imagine what he would think of it now?
KELLY: I'm smiling because you didn't directly answer my question over whether you might run again...
PELOSI: Oh, I'm not answering that question.
KELLY: ...Depending on the outcome of the presidential race.
PELOSI: That's a...
KELLY: But I'm listening to you, and you don't sound done.
PELOSI: No. Well, I mean, there are all kinds of ways to be participating. But I think it's important for us to have the free, new, fresh approach to all of this. But my main goal - winning the House, defeating Donald Trump.
KELLY: Nancy Pelosi - her new book is titled "The Art Of Power: My Story As America's First Woman Speaker Of The House." Speaker Pelosi, thank you.
PELOSI: Thank you.
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