JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
One of the most powerful women in the history of American politics says she will not seek reelection.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
NANCY PELOSI: With a grateful heart, I look forward to my final year of service as your proud representative. As we go forward...
SUMMERS: Nancy Pelosi made the announcement today in a video dedicated to her San Francisco constituents. Pelosi was first elected to Congress nearly four decades ago in 1987, and the freshman Democrat immediately established herself as a bold voice in the House chamber. Here's Susan Page, Washington Bureau chief of USA Today, and author of "Madam Speaker: Nancy Pelosi And The Lessons Of Power."
SUSAN PAGE: She was fearless from the start. You know, that was a time when AIDS was a very serious issue in San Francisco, but it was one that there was a big stigma about, and so a lot of politicians didn't want to talk about HIV/AIDS. Nancy Pelosi started talking about the importance of addressing AIDS and addressing those - helping those who were struggling with AIDS from her first speech on the House floor. And that was really a sign for things to come. She was someone who was not afraid to talk about big issues in ways that sometimes made other people uncomfortable or angry.
SUMMERS: She made history as the first woman to become speaker of the House in 2007. I remember that well. How big a deal was it? And how big of a deal is it still almost two decades later? She's been the only one.
PAGE: Yeah. Look at all the women who have been speaker of the House.
SUMMERS: Yeah.
PAGE: There's exactly one - or president of the United States or chief justice of the Supreme Court. You know, she is the only woman to head one of our three coequal branches of government, and that tells you something about how significant that election was.
SUMMERS: I mean, the fact that she was a high-profile woman leading Democrats in the House made her both the subject of sexist attacks at times, but she was also something of a feminist hero, a subject of adoration. How did Nancy Pelosi herself reckon with all of that public discourse that seemed to swirl around her?
PAGE: She ignored it. She plowed on. She pretended - she dismissed sexist attacks by and large. She just went and did her job. She was enormously focused on just getting things done. But she turned around and helped a whole generation of women after her, including, by the way, the two women who were elected governor of New Jersey and Virginia on Tuesday. Both of them former House...
SUMMERS: You're talking about Mikie Sherrill and Abigail Spanberger.
PAGE: Exactly. Both former House members who Nancy Pelosi helped gain their political footing.
SUMMERS: I was a congressional reporter at times when Nancy Pelosi was leading House Democrats, and I remember watching her sort of wield her power well. Susan Page, can you talk a little bit about her political legacy in Congress? She was this prominent force pushing the Obama White House to deliver on the Affordable Care Act. What did that moment show us about who she was as a political leader?
PAGE: Well, remember that the Affordable Care Act had been a promise of Barack Obama's during the campaign. But when the time came to deliver, there were those in the White House who wanted to do a kind of a small version of it. Nancy Pelosi did not allow that to happen. And while the Affordable Care Act certainly wouldn't have passed without President Obama, it also would not have passed without Nancy Pelosi. And even among Democrats, there were those who thought it would be an impossible task to get that big transformative legislation through Congress, and it is the achievement that she says she is most proud of.
SUMMERS: In a different era of our politics, bipartisanship was a celebrated virtue, both on the left and the right. How much did bipartisanship matter to Pelosi throughout her political career? And I wonder, Susan, did her views on that change?
PAGE: Nancy Pelosi was a pretty fierce partisan from the start. She was a Democrat. There were no question about her allegiances. That said, you know, she delivered for a Republican president, for George W. Bush in 2008 - the financial meltdown, that bank bailout was failing to get through Republicans. Republicans were not passing the bank bailout that the president needed, that economists said was important to avoid another great recession. And it was Nancy Pelosi who finally pushed that through Congress at some considerable political cost. She thought it was a big factor in Democrats then losing control of the House and her losing the speakership. That was a gesture of bipartisanship on her part because she felt it was crucial for the future of the country and even the globe.
SUMMERS: We should also note that Nancy Pelosi exerted a really powerful influence on the presidency. Back in 2008, she pushed back on a plan for superdelegates to help Hillary Clinton take the Democratic nomination from Barack Obama, which then helped Obama, of course, secure his path to the White House. And in 2024, just last year, she was key in getting Biden to drop out of the presidential race. What do those moves say about her power within the Democratic Party more broadly, outside of Capitol Hill?
PAGE: You know, it's mostly behind the scenes. She's not great at giving a speech. She's not a charismatic figure. And when Joe Biden was continuing to seek a second term last year, and a lot of Democrats thought that was a bad idea, it was Nancy Pelosi who stepped up to really engineer the pressure on him that got him to drop that race.
SUMMERS: As you look back now, we are in a moment where Republicans hold the presidency as well as both Houses of Congress. What do you see as Nancy Pelosi's political legacy?
PAGE: You know, I think the thing she has some regret about is that she's leaving office while Donald Trump is still in it. She was actually thinking seriously about retiring from Congress in 2016 and didn't because Donald Trump got elected. She thought she'd leave - announce - the announcement she made today, she was going to make that after Hillary Clinton had been elected president. And when that didn't happen, she signed back on because of her opposition to Trump and her belief that he represented a threat to democratic institutions.
SUMMERS: Susan Page is the author of "Madam Speaker: Nancy Pelosi And The Lessons Of Power." Susan, thank you.
PAGE: Juana, thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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