Speaker Pelosi Speaks at The Atlantic Festival Ideas Stage

Hi everyone and welcome to the Atlantic Festival. I hope you've been with us for a little while already. I'm going to be talking right now with the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, a perennial guest at the Atlantic Festival. Thank you, Madam Speaker, for taking time out. I know it's a somewhat busy week, but we always appreciate your giving us some time at the Atlantic Festival and we really appreciate it. So thank you for coming. My pleasure to be here. Great, great. So why don't we, I mean, I'm hoping that since we have a little bit of time, we could talk about some deep things, but let's talk about some issues of the moment. If you could just kind of give us the state of play as of today in terms of both the infrastructure bill and its apparent decoupling to the larger domestic policy spending bill. Where do things stand with you? Well, first, let me thank you again for the opportunity to chat. This has been something I've always looked forward to. As I've said to you all before, when I was in high school, which has been a while ago, I subscribed to the Atlantic Monthly, as it's called then. I loved reading it. And one of the reasons that in our school that we all had to subscribe to the Atlantic Monthly was because we wanted to be good writers. And we were told you couldn't be good writers unless you read good writing. So it wasn't only about the substance and what we learned, but it was also to learn by reading good writing. So thank you, Atlantic, for being an inspiration for all these years. So good to be with you. Okay, this is a very eventful week. How was your day? That's the way it is every day here. We have four things on our plate right now. As you know, the debt ceiling is a matter of a couple of weeks, but we want to address it as soon as possible. The shutdown of government is a matter of days, and that would be September 30th. The infrastructure bill has a September 30th deadline for highway authorization and the rest. And of course, the Build Back Better Biden initiative. President Biden said that he was happy and pleased to work in a bipartisan way to find common ground in a bipartisan way on infrastructure. But he would not confine his vision for America to what could be achieved in that way, that we had to, again, build back better. And that is the reconciliation bill. So we proceeded, and I'm so proud of our members, all the committees of jurisdiction, 13 of them, taking part in developing the agenda, working with the Senate to have common ground to try to honor the bird bath and all that, you know, bird rolls and that. And we met our deadline, September 15th, and then this past weekend on Saturday, the Budget Committee reported out that product. In the course of that time, as you know, there were those who said that number was too high. So we're waiting to see and weighing in every way to see what an adjusted number would be. But we are ready. You know, we've done our work in terms of more than you want to know on the subject, but in terms of Ledge Council, CBO, bird bath, all of that. And we hope that that will be imminent and that we can then take that legislation to the floor. What's important to know about that, and this is something that people get concerned about, because when we have built in the future, we haven't addressed the climate issues and the rest of that, and we have to do that. But not only that, there has to be justice in all of this. And President Biden has been magnificent in his writing of this, campaigning on this, and having this as his vision, because there have been injustices, whether environmental justice or dividing up communities. So as we build, it has to be better. In addition to that, it has to address, of course, the climate concerns, and that's part of infrastructure, about health issues, clean air, clean water, jobs issues, preeminence in the world and the green technologies, security issues, not having migrations and conflict for competition for habitat and resources, as all of that narrows, and a moral issue to preserve this planet. You believe that as I, that it's God's creation, it's a religious thing, in addition to a value, I think, that everybody shares, that we have a responsibility to pass this on. Now, to build better is also about women, unleashing the power of women fully in our economy and in the workplace, with child care, child tax credit, family medical leave, universal pre-K home health care, of those kinds of initiatives that give leverage to children, give leverage to women, give leverage to people with disabilities in this new bill. The point being that when people say, well, every time something is reduced, our communities suffer. No, this starts with their communities. That's why it's better, rather than a triple down of we're building this, and hopefully some of it will come your way. No, we're starting with that. So it's exciting, and it's important decisions, and it's all legislative. So we have to find our common ground, build our consensus and win the day. Let me ask you a question about the legislating. Let me just ask you a question about that. You have said or suggested that a lot of what's going on, the drama between Senators Manchin and Sinema on the one hand, and the Progressive Caucus and the House, the squad, you have suggested that this is kind of the kabuki of legislating and that it's all going to work out in the end. But there is a lot of anxiety on the Hill that this is too unwieldy, that you're not going to be able to rein this in and get most of what you want. How confident are you that you're going to end up with, if not $3.5 trillion in domestic spending, but something that's fairly revolutionary, something that's as dramatic as you want? Well, the President's number is what we built our bill around. It isn't the last bill we will ever pass. There are some adjustments we can make in timing, length of program, and the rest. So we just need to have, it's not about a number. The President said it perfectly. He said, what's the top line? Zero, because it's all paid for. This is about creating good paying jobs. It's about lowering costs for families. It's about tax breaks for the middle class, and it is all paid for. So how do we, what is the figure in which we, how do we, if we have to come down? But it's not about a number. It's about the values. What would you cut? Would you cut child care, child tax credit, one family medical leave, universal pre-K, home health care? Would you cut investments in protecting the planet, which is a health, jobs, security, and moral issue? So it is, it's not, if we just take what it is we must have for the people, then we arrive at a number. But it isn't starting with a number and then start cutting. It's about building back better. And let me just say, I think it's all the respect in the world for the reporting on this. I think that there has been an appetite for saying there's big division in the Democratic, and I've never seen our caucus so organized, so unified. And I say that with a long history of trying to make sure we had the vote on something. Over 95% of our caucus is fully behind, and that's the moderates in the party, the new Democrats, the rest. They share his values as we go forward. Somehow or other, you decided to make it this thing about moderates. And the moderates are overwhelmingly in support of President Biden in this legislation, as well as the progressives. So it may be fun to have that kind of a thing, but that's not what's happening in our party. And I'm so proud of our members because they understand what is at stake and what we have to get done. Well, let me just stay on that point you made earlier, that it's all paid for. I mean, obviously you believe that. Equally, obviously, Senators Manchin and Sinema don't necessarily believe that. Some of your moderates, and obviously you have no margin right now in the House. You've got to hold that entire caucus together. How do you convince them? What's the proof? What's the argument that, no, this is actually paid for, and we can spend these massive amounts of money to restructure so many of these programs and add new programs? Well, in fact, this is not even subjective. This is objective fact that we have a wider range. Chuck and I and the Secretary met the other day, excuse me, Peter Schumer and I met with Secretary Yellen and Secretary of Treasury the other day to agree on a framework of revenues that we could pull in. Now, it depends on the number. If the number is lower, then we deal with it one way. But the fact is, this is it. Some of the people out there, I'm not talking about members. Some of the people out there say, oh, it's too big. And we say, well, we're shrinking it, and it's paid for. When we say it's paid for, you'd think they'd say, glory, hallelujah. And they say, oh, my God, you're going to raise my taxes. No, we're going to have people pay their fair share. So this isn't even subjective, with all due respect to your question. This is objective fact. This will be paid for. And it is pretty exciting. That's why when the president said the top line is zero, because it's paid for. And then the arguments about inflation, this or that, are dispelled by the fact that it is paid for. I'll look back to it. That's the case we have to make. So some people say, well, I don't want it so high because I don't want to tax this, that, or the other thing. That's a different argument. But the fact is that the tax possibilities are there. Whether people want to pay tax, increase the corporate rate, capital gains, all that, high-end individuals, just fair share, not punitive, just fair share. And, of course, also to have the IRS be able to collect taxes that are illegally being avoided. I'm not talking about legal, I'm talking about illegally being avoided. That's a big number, hundreds of billions of dollars. We can come back to this in a second. But there's a larger question, and there is something that's true about coverage of this, which is that we, in the media, we tend, in this instance and probably in other instances, to spend more time thinking about the number than what's in the package. And I want to get to that. But can I enter that question by putting this idea to you that, in fact, the progressives have already won, the progressive wing has already won, because the argument is about a number and not the nature of the programs that are being discussed? I mean, do you feel like the progressive wing is fully ascendant? You may ask that question, but this is President Biden's vision. This is his agenda, which is fully supported by House and Democrats across the board. Maybe the question is, are you surprised that Joe Biden has become a progressive after spending three and a half decades as a moderate? Well, as I say, in our caucus, when you divide nine people versus the 210 people, our caucus is very united, and we're very respectful of everybody's views. We're a big tent, and we respect that. But this is his agenda that is receiving the big support across the board. The fact that the press wanted to play it as this is Democrats versus moderates. No, the moderates in the Congress overwhelmingly support this. So this is about Joe Biden. And I appreciate the articulate and eloquent presentations of what's in the bill by someone on our progressive side. I consider myself there representing San Francisco, as I do proudly in the Congress. But make no mistake, this is the Biden agenda. So yes, you may ask that question, but I don't get it because clearly, this is something that, again, committees have worked together. It's a consensus within our caucus following the of the President of the United States. But it's fantastic that we have this. Now, people compare him to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, that, oh, my gosh, this is comparable to the New Deal. President Roosevelt had 319 Democrats in the Congress when he put forth his agenda. Not that it wasn't more transformational, but this is transformational, too, with a smaller margin. Do you think that this is the equivalent of the New Deal? If this goes through this week or later on, is it as dramatic as that? But of course, the New Deal was dealing with such a depression in our country that, again, there were so many things that went into it. But in terms of being transformational, in terms of that, the New Deal, LBJ, what he did, this takes leverage to keep children, poor people, people with disabilities, women. And so not in terms of size or number of agencies established or something like that, but in terms of changing the dynamic, building up rather than trickling down, spreading from the middle rather than, again, enhancing the high end. And it is, in its time, it is as needed as what was needed then because we were on a path of such incredible disparity, economic disparity, in our country that could have led to a caste system. The wealthy, now again, this is not to not appreciate the success and achievement of those, but they have to pay their fair share. And we cannot have a country that is not recognizing that we are a consumer economy. And that's why I established the Select Committee on Disparity in Income and Opportunity, Wealth and Opportunity in our country, headed by Jim Himes. Because this is a real challenge to our democracy, because the middle class is the backbone of a democracy. I believe the middle class has a union label on it, and I thank our friends in labor for taking us to a better place. But there's erosion in that because of what's happening in terms of the capitalist system, which we are and which we will be, but not serving the needs of the entire economy in the way it should. I want to come to the small subject of the future of American democracy in a moment, but I wanted to pivot to a couple of national security and foreign policy questions. We're seeing reports today that 220 female Afghan judges have gone into hiding for fear of the Taliban. We see Kabul University banning women and universities in Afghanistan banning women. Give us your view a few weeks out of the Afghanistan withdrawal, the way it was done, and the fact of it itself and its impact on women. Well, the impact of women in Afghanistan is probably one of the reasons that there was public support for us staying there so long. I think that President Biden made the exact right decision. It was long overdue. We should have been out a long time. We should have stayed longer in the beginning to get the job done instead of going to Iraq, but that's another conversation. We had to leave. There were three stages of the decision to leave. The timing of it was established by President Trump before, but nonetheless to leave, A. B, the retrograde, what you call getting out our troops, our military out was done safely. The third piece, the evacuation, don't forget 120,000 people evacuated, not just us, but working with our allies. Sadly, we lost 13 of our military who were patriotically trying to get them out. What could that have been done better? Yes, and now it continues to be done better. The fate of women in Afghanistan, I've been there many times. I've been there lots of times on Mother's Day to visit mothers across the country in our military and in their community. I wear this ring, which is made by Afghan women. I have many mementos from them about them and what they have made. Their fate was something that was very important to all of us, and I've visited them, not just judges and the rest in Kabul, and that's very important, judges, professionals, heads of universities, doctors, et cetera, but the poorest of the poor in the hinterlands of Afghanistan, and to see those girls go to school. We did something very transformative, and for 20 years, they benefited from that, and we have to keep our eyes, the Taliban has to know that the eyes, and this is bipartisan, Democratic and Republican women, House and Senate, one of the leaders in all of this, Laura Bush, Michelle Obama, Jill Biden, caring about the women, not just because it's the women, but the fate of the women is important to the fate of Afghanistan. So it is- So what should we be doing for the women who we told life would get better? What should we be doing? What do we owe those women now? It did get better. It did get better. There's no turning back on the education of those girls and the rest, but we have to keep a bright, shining light on Afghanistan and the Taliban so that they know we're watching what's happening with that, and that if there are things that they need, because they will need cooperation internationally, that it is contingent about how women are treated. It's a very dangerous situation. There's no question, there's no minimizing, but we have to use every possibility that we have for the women of Afghanistan. And the bill that the Republicans voted against, it was a bipartisan bill, actually, in terms of the CR, has very specific provisions in the bill for how we help the Afghanis who are coming here now. That's why it's important to pass that continuing resolution, to keep government open, of course, to meet the needs of those affected by IDA, but also a significant resource to help the transition of Afghanis into our society. One other foreign policy question. Last week, there was a kind of a little bit of an eruption around the funding for the Iron Dome anti-missile system. And there are a lot of people who are arguing that, well, even though it passed, this is further proof that the Democratic Party is moving away from support for Israel. Can you frame out, just take a minute and frame out, the state of that discussion within your caucus? First of all, I totally disagree with your characterization, not yours, but that you referenced. It's a Republican tactic. The support for Israel has been and will always be bipartisan in our caucus. Some of our members do not want to support the Iron Dome here. It's going to be in our bill. It's already in our appropriations bill, which passed the Congress. But again, there was a thought, well, let's move it up and have it here. Okay. Just because some members, because of their constituents and the rest, didn't vote for that doesn't mean they don't support our relationship with Israel. Just take that out of the equation. It's a Republican tactic to say that. But it is historically always so. But it's been bipartisan and will continue to be bipartisan. And we passed a bill the next day supporting the support for the Iron Dome. It's honoring a memorandum of understanding that President Obama engaged in when he was president. And we will honor that. And again, it's in our larger appropriations bill. The argument was really, do we need to move this up sooner when the equipment might not even be ready until later, but not to get into that. Again, you can call me back and I'll talk to you about my credentials on Israel. My father, Thomas D'Alessandro, Jr., speaking on the floor of the House when he was a New Deal Democrat, criticizing the administration for not doing enough for Jewish people in Europe during the Holocaust, saying that the disinformation was known by the administration in the archives of the State Department. He worshipped at the shrine of Franklin Roosevelt, but he disagreed. And he disagreed that Franklin Roosevelt wasn't, the administration wasn't moving quickly enough to establish a Jewish state in Palestine. So I've come to this in the DNA, and I present any characterization to somebody else about what the Democrats are when it comes to Israel. It's in our personal interest to support Israel. It's in our value system to do so as well. Let me go to this question about democracy, if I can. We'll end on this. Talk about January 6th. But it seems as if we've entered possibly a new phase in American history in which one of the two major parties no longer is predisposed to accept the verdict of the popular vote and the Electoral College vote. Are you worried come 2024 that if a Democrat were to win fair and square that the Republicans will simply not accept that outcome? I mean, what is your biggest, if you could, this is a hard question in a way, but what is your biggest anxiety about what I would call the decomposition of democratic norms and standards? Well, thank you for your question, Jeff, and your concern and characterization of it. Here's the thing. On January 6th, there was an assault on the Capitol, a day fraught with meaning in terms of the Constitution, because that's the day we accept the numbers of the Electoral College. So that's why they came. They assaulted the Capitol, the symbol of democracy to the world. They assaulted it on a day. They assaulted the Constitution. They assaulted our democracy. It was horrible. We can have a whole presentation about that. But every single day since, they continue to try to undermine our democracy with legislation across the country to suppress the vote, to nullify the vote, and we cannot let that happen. I say to my Republican friends, take back your party. You are the grand old party. You've done great things for our country. I've said that on your presentations before. Do not be hijacked by a cult who is now not just a difference of opinion on policy or governance or science, but is undermining the vote, which is fundamental to our democracy. So we have to pass legislation to nullify those voting suppression bills across the country, nullification votes across the country. We have to do so soon. We have the legislation in the Senate. But we also have to, we can win in the courts, but we have to win in the court of public opinion. People have to know our democracy is at stake. This is no fear-mongering. This is actual fact. This is actual fact. And again, it's a situation where for one person in denial about the election results, if you go down that path, you are going into autocracy. You're going into autocracy, and we must protect and defend. At the beginning of our country, and Damien Raskin's always proud of quoting Thomas Paine, Thomas Paine said that times have found us. Times found them to declare independence, to fight a war, to win it, to write our documents. Thank God they made them amendable. Times found them to establish this great country. Times found Lincoln to preserve the unity of the country, and he did so. The times have found us to preserve it. Not that we place ourselves in the category of greatness of Lincoln and our founders, but the urgency of the assault on our democracy is real, and we must prevail. And again, we fight them every step of the way. And again, it makes politics seem almost trivial here. This next election is not just about Democrats or Republicans, do you believe in climate change or not? This is about, do you believe in our democracy or not? If they ever got the gavels, what they would do to our democracy is crushing. And we see it every day here. I don't think a lot of Republicans across the country, although they mistrust the results of the election, they believe a president when he says something. But this president is not worthy, that president, what's his name, is not worthy of the trust that people placed in him because he is undermining our democracy in a way that caused death, damage, trauma, so much. And that's important, but nothing as important as our democracy. We take the oath to protect and defend the Constitution. Well, Madam Speaker, I'd love to spend all day long talking to you about good old what's his name, but we are out of time and you have a lot of things to do. But I wanted to thank you for coming to the Atlantic Festival and we hope to see you back live on stage at the Atlantic Festival next year at this time. Thanks again. I hope so. And thank you. I always appreciate the opportunity to have a conversation with you and under the auspices of the Atlantic. Thank you so much. My pleasure. Thank you.