to solve. thank you for joining this virtual interview and for everyone watching, thank you for joining and we will see you at the next interview coming up very soon. thank you very much. dir. georgieva: thank you. >> federal reserve chair jerome powell and treasury secretary steven mnuchin and testify remotely before the senate banking committee about the $2 trillion cares act which passed in march as part of the government's coronavirus response. ate coverage begins tuesday 10:00 eastern on c-span, c-span.org or you can listen live on the free c-span radio app. joining us here in washington is molly ball. is molly ball, a national political correspondent and author of the new book "pelosi.

" what led to this book? guest: nancy pelosi had never been on the cover of time or any national magazine despite having become the first woman speaker of the house, and we felt like it was time to take a look at the whole person, the profile. so i was assigned the piece but i was not all that interested in her and it was only when i andted interviewing her looking into her background that i realized -- obviously someone who will go down in american history both as a groundbreaking figure as the first woman speaker and i think one of the most congressional figures in her time.

the profile was published and i decided it was worth expanding into this book. host: how much access did you have to the speaker? guest: she did cooperate with this book. she gave me a series of interviews. as i recount, she is not the most transparent person, not someone who will let her hair down and tell you everything she thinks. but she did give me a series of interviews that i felt were revealing and added to the portrait. she came to washington representing san francisco back in 1987, and you write the following, in that year she realized that she was anything but an airhead. she barely slept, and she was liberated from the family responsibilities, she seemed to do nothing but work with a maniacal level of energy. behind her back, they called her the energizer honey. common team,is a

her incredible level of energy. by the time she came to congress in 1987, she was 47 and she had raised five children and seen them pretty much out of the house. after being time, done with her family responsibilities, she was a longtime volunteer. but the word airhead was something she had run up against and she ran for chair of the national committee, and it was something that one official said behind her back about her. i think it was symbolic about the perceptions that she had to bite as she rose in politics because she was a well-dressed middle-age woman, and it was not wantpeople to just to take her seriously. it meant that she had to work hard to get people to see her as a substantive person, somebody who knew what she was doing. host: as you point out in the

book, back in the 60's, both she and steny hoyer at the same internship. what is the relationship between the two? they are both from the baltimore area. was a working-class kid from the suburbs, and they both, when they graduated college, worked on the staff of the maryland senator daniel brewster, separated by a wall, and they were aware of each other. nobody ever would have thought that these two young adults would become the number one and two democratic leaders in the house of representatives, particularly nancy, number one, did have instances against each other. the first time when she ran into

thousand one, that was a hard-fought campaign, and there are sort of rival camps, and they will both tell you that they have developed a good working relationship. a lot of members of the caucus feel the same way, that their strengths complement each other, their different visions make very good combination. i think there will always be some tension there. every once in a while to this pelosi takel see some excuse to make life a little bit more difficult, and it seems like they will never lose that sense of competition. us.: molly ball is joining in her book she writes the following, blog -- pelosi -- the grumpy old man.

that's right, he was sort of a conservative democrat and i think she would have described him as a little bit chauvinistic , sort of this graphic text marine. the opposite profile of a liberal woman from san francisco. they developed a good report early on and he really helped served as a validator for her with those other men. the grumpy old men of the democratic caucus, a lot sit in the part of the house for cuppa that's of a new corner. he brokered introductions for her not only with the older male parts, but the more conservative democrats. aen she did start seeking spot in leadership, those relationships can crucial. what he would always say to people was, don't think she's from san francisco. she is from baltimore, the point being she came out of this machine of politics of the

democratic machine she grew up in. she wasn't the liberal that people might have suspected. host: also you say the story of nancy is the story of a person who shattered the marble ceiling and glazed a new trail for women and a career that stamped american history, a story about politics, a story that will shape american politics in the trump era. it was not tics because washington. it was hers. presidentabout the and the negotiations on the stemless bill that passed in the house on friday. >> i do not have any idea what the president does. >> he said the house is on vacation. >> don't waste our time on what he says. we are try to get a job done with the american people, to

bring people together. we have our differences of opinion. we have a strong agreement that we have a responsibility to meet. i'm the appropriate or, that's how it was forged in congress, so i know left to our own devices, we can reach agreement and have all along. ,o we want to get to that place and we will see how we can resolve our differences. heartbreak inf our country, from the loss of a loved one, the sadness over losing a business where prospect of losing a business, so people want to know what we are here to do for them. they do not care about who said what about whom at the white house. that is an important, with all due respect to your question. host: your reaction? guest: that is a classic nancy

pelosi comment, don't bother meet with all of that noise. call me when you want to get something done, and you want to have a negotiation. as a detail in the book, from her perspective she has gotten the better end of the deal in negotiations with the white house and the republicans. she is very good. she is always able to keep her troops in line behind her. she has been able to help make sure that the formal care act is not repealed. she has been able to -- the affordable care act is not repealed. negotiations,irus i think there are unhappy factions, but she believes she is maximized her leverage to get the best deal possible for the

priorities that she cares about. she and the president have not spoken in some time. he has decided that he basically will not speak to her anymore because he is mad about impeachment. she is willing to sit down and have the negotiation, and she has been complaining about recently about the republicans do not even want to have a talk. busy makings are laws, pushing things to the house, and the republicans are saying we do not want to do anything right now. host: the phone lines are open. (202) 748-8000 is for democrats, (202) 748-8001 for republicans. the conversation with molly ball and we will get to your conversation in a moment. there is a photograph, the speaker of the house is looking directly at the president on the issue of syria. everyone else is seated. does that tell you about the

speaker? guest: that picture was published by the president, by the white house. it only came to light because the president tweeted it, and it was funny that it seemed to register with a lot of people in the opposite way, liberals especially enjoyed that visual of her, the only woman around , a bunch of men start up at the floor, and she is the one who is standing up to the president, putting her finger in her -- she --face did what in his face. fire with caught people because of the visual, and she even needed her twitter header for a little bit. it tells you how her image has

changed since she has become speaker again. even amongtime democrats they were not too sure about her, thought maybe she was too old. you heard that from a lot of people on the left. you hear less of that now. here has been an embrace of in particular because so much of the politics has been driven by a wave of liberal women activism. i had a chance to ask her about that picture, what she thought about the way it resonated with people. i was trying to get her to reflect on her image. that is not something she really does. rather than talk about with the picture represented, where her mind went immediately was just to the strategy. i could not believe the president published a picture. she did not -- he did not understand what is in his interest. she is always thinking about

strategy, not really interested in symbolism. us fromb joins massachusetts. good morning. caller: good morning. book up toitten this when nancy pelosi just tore up the president's speech? guest: that is a good question. ends withs, but it impeachment. print i thedy in time that happened. -- by the time that happened. maybe i will be able to add another chapter, but that was another encounter between the speaker and the president. honestly, it shows as much as she has tried to take the high saying she is not

bothered by all of his insults, he did seem to get under her skin a little bit and i think that is in a way that was rarely seen. there are theories about why she did that, but what i can tell is that it really was spontaneous, and she really was offended by the speech and by his use of the house chamber to put on what she campaign a show, a rally for the state of the union. host: frank joins us from missouri. good morning. caller: good morning. i just want to opine that the steps that we took in the beginning were not effective. if we were going to have a shut down, i do not understand why taco bell drive-through's were open, but the churches were closed. i that -- what we are being led to believe mostlyow, these are just

feel-good measures that are being taken and there is no real effectiveness to tracing or mass testing as a real thing that we can implement. i do not think we can do it. i also think that america, we've been trained to think in 60 minute episodes. law and order tells us everything can be figured out in 60 minutes. that is not the case. millions could die from the increased poverty over the next decade versus the effects of this virus right now. i just do not think enough time is being spent discussing this. his point, molly ball, on the cover story of time, more americans are unemployed then at any time since the great depression. --aker pelosi dead on arrival in the u.s.

senate. caller: -- guest: that is right. at first there was a real bipartisan effort to get some of these early bills through the congress, but now we are seeing a much more polarized and partisan debate with liberals increasingly emphasizing the need to keep the country shut down and increase our ability to cope with the virus, whether that is supporting people so they do not fall into poverty or increasing the capacity of the health-care system to do things like test and trace and treat people. you do have republicans saying we cannot go too far here, we should not allow this to become an excuse to just pass a bunch of liberal policies and hand out a bunch of money. emphasizing the need to get back to work and restart the economy, i will say there is a reason why

a taco bell drive-through would be open and nature to be closed that is because the church is a place where people congregate indoors. everything we've seen about the virus says that it spreads when people are together indoors. none of that happens in a taco bell drive-through. a lot of other countries have been able to ramp up their andity to test and trace not only flatten the curve but start reopening. what we have seen in our reporting is that the united states has not been able to build up the capacity. that does not mean we cannot. host: you point out when she was elected in the special election, she was one of only when three women in the house of representatives. today there is 127. that affect nancy pelosi as a freshman representative? guest: i think it had a huge

effect on her career. for one thing, when the women's members, youy 23 will not get very far by summoning the sisterhood. it was crucial that she be able to work with men and get men to take her seriously and to listen to her. her approach to that was that fix thenot going to problems she saw around her. she was going to have to deal with it for priority is educating divisional men who might say something down, but trying to get things done. the other thing is she devoted herself in the early years to focusing on policy. she was not claiming the leadership ladder in the early years. she had been in congress for more than 10 years before she decided to run for a leadership position. she was focused on the most important committees and doing

the most substantive work. as you heard her saying in the clip you played, she was an or and that really was the education for her in terms of being able to understand policy. very detail oriented mind and a phenomenal memory, so she is able to go through a document like the budget and remember everything. that is really how she was able to earn the respect of a lot of those men who might have written her off as an airhead, to show that she knew herself -- new her stuff -- knew her stuff. withr: my whole idea

speaker pelosi he is she is too old, and everything she wants to do is impossible. she continues to do it. common critique of hurt not only that she is too old, which he does not like that criticism in part because she waited until later in life to start her political career. that is not how it works, you do not get to knock 20 years off your age just because you feel like you started late, but she would point out she is only a couple years older than mitch mcconnell, and yet somehow he does not seem to get this criticism. there's a lot of angst about the fact that not only nancy pelosi, tenants, and that means that younger members who are promising, and other stuff

on policy, might be able to be effective cannot move up that ladder. that is really frustrating if you are a young democratic member of congress that was a big part of the reason there was a drive to oust nancy pelosi, but it is testament to the goodwill that she has that she was able to defeat those efforts. she does remain leader of the democrats. host: does she serve another term? guest: she does not talk about that. she gets a little snappish if you bring it up. whene new reporting that she began this term of her speakership, she was only planning to stay for one term. as part of the negotiations to regain the speakership, she accepted a four year limit, which would be two terms. she told people that it was not much of a concession because she was only planning to stay one term anyway.

she has stayed on in the past when people did not expect her to. one thing she said about 2016 is the reason she stayed on was that if she had not, they would be no woman in the room during the negotiations between the president and the top leaders of congress. she is the only woman in the room, and she remains the only woman to lead her party in congress. nominee the democratic is a man again, there will not be a woman president again, have to wonder if she will have concern about that that might lead her to hold on just a little bit longer. i cannot begin to predict what she will do. she grilling -- is she grooming anyone to replace her? she is not.

it is not her job to mentor and train someone. she does have a lot of favorites and people that she mentors and people that she helps. i have asked her this question specifically white black, why haven't you groomed a successor? one thing that she says also is i was, but he left. he was a democratic member of congress who is moving up in leadership but who got frustrated with how long it was taking for the top leaders to move on and ran for senate instead. that is where he is now. you see more effects of the bottleneck of leadership in the caucus, that a lot of promising members who could've been

successors eventually decided it was taking too long. will go to janice from louisiana. good morning. caller: i just wanted to make a statement that i think that age should not have anything to do with what she is doing. she knew whatg, she was going to be confronted with, dealing with the president, so she handled it all appropriate because everybody to doants to allow him anything he want to do to keep him from getting mad. ball?molly guest: whatever you think of her, you have to admit she is extremely tough. that is something that the democrats appreciate because she is able to stand up to the present and confront him in a

way that really no one else has been able to do, so those images of her standing up to the president, whether it is that meeting where she is pointing at him or whether it is the image of hercover of my book walking out of that meeting him, i think those images really resonate with a lot of liberals because they are desperate to .ee some kind of force that is why democrats are in control of the house today, because the american people put them in charge in those midterm elections in 2018. i think nancy pelosi takes that seriously, representing the other america, the america that is not fond of the president. have a caller from california. about: i am curious whether the author knows anything about whether nancy

pelosi knows why general flynn has not been court-martialed. that is a quite specific question. i do not know the answer. a court-martial is a military process that i do not think the speaker of the house would have anything to do with. she is quite concerned about what she sees as the threat to the rule of law at the trump administration represents, and that was the genesis of the impeachment drive. she did put out a statement expressing concern about the developments, including the latest dismissal of the inspector general. you saw her slow walking impeachment for a long time, to the frustration of a lot of democrats. her line was always that it was just going to be divisive and pointless. she eventually felt it had to be done, but i think with all of

she says, if you want to stop dixie, you got to do something about the election in november. baltimoregrew up in and her father was the mayor. in the book you write, her parents were indeed raising her to be holy. they thought she might become a nun she kept telling people something different, i'm going to be a priest. her mother finally corrected her. she then announced she was planning to go into politics instead. part of her ringing -- notref her upbringing was dame. here's part of that interview. i am so sad. i mother and i went to the institute of notre dame so it had a revered place in our hearts.

so this is a very important place to our family. my brother passed away in the fall which was very sad for all of us. he was a beautiful daily communicant, and supportive of interestls, and taking in this institute, the school sisters of notre dame in such a beautiful way. , we were across the street from the projects. it was a school that stood fry very long time. , they didme schools move to the suburbs outside the city a bit, and that institute

stay downtown. it was a wonderful place to go read it to us what we needed to learn academically and it taught us the values. it was a place where we went to mass every day as well. mass. hot chocolate after that was the thing i remember with great joy. i love chocolate, and i love mass. host: another reference to the chocolate. as you hear who -- or talk about that, that really shaped who she is today. guest: absolutely. she was very devoted to her indies, and she was educated an all-girls school bite nuns. she was not interested in becoming a nun as her parents hope she might. she never really considered that as a career path. she always wanted more independence than she was allowed to have as a little girl in the 40's and 50's.

, sheher father was mayor was seven when he was elected, he had a driver who worked for the city who would take her to and from school because the school was across town. she found this really embarrassing. she did not want to be the princess of the city that everybody thought she was better than everyone else. she would make that driver stop a few blocks away and she would walk up to the school like everyone else so that she did not seem like she was putting herself above anyone. the nuns of the school, she talks about them a lot, how they shaped her and her education. at the same time she went to break free of some of that, have her own life. she did not want to become a new. she took a different path. she goesl the story as to trinity college, she wanted to go there, and hung her father said what?

want: her father did not her to move, and he said she would leave to go to college over my dead body, and her mother responded, that could be arranged. you can see the very strong-willed character of her mother. she did go away to college, even though it was just an hour down the road. my question and my interestingwhat is about these biographies, they basically discuss the political acumen, the intelligence of the individual. what seems to be missing is the issue of fundraising and how key that is for -- to attain congressional leadership. she has been very successful, but that is left out. i think we are doing a disparate

-- the service, the american media is, when what is driving so much of political activity in washington is fundraising, money. when that is left out, we are now pretty far along in the discussion, and molly has not talked about this at all. it seems to be she is just this gusty woman who was able to byieve this stature basically, and i am sure she is, but leaving that out i think is a disservice because that what seems to be driving american politics in such a big way. should point out fundraising is a big part of the book as well. do you want to address that? guest: i do encourage you to read the book because there is plenty about that and about her career as a fundraiser, which is

one of the way she got to congress. she made a lot of connections and was able to call in a lot of favors. at the same time, i do not think it is accurate to say just because people raise money, they must be corrupt and acting only on the interest of their donors. very few people have been the as much as nancy pelosi. she has had hundreds of dollars spent against her, so this idea that seat -- that she is just somewhat working for the big corporations, i think the big corporations would find that hilarious. it is not as simple as just to say big corporations give her money and she goes off and does their bidding. she is not as far as some would she is not as far to

the left as some would like. she has advocated for various policies that would do something to reduce the influence of money in politics. she has been stymied in those efforts. i think she would agree with the caller that there is too much influence for money in politics, but the system being the way it is, she does not believe that the democrats should disarm. she think it is important for them to win and that means competing on the yield that exists, and then perhaps they can do something on these issues. host: there was a moment that you write about in the book with tom marino and she called him an insignificant person and she is chasing him across the house floor. set up but this was all about.

guest: that is one of my favorite clips. ofcy pelosi is the leader the democratic minority, the democrats having lost the house in 2010, so obama is still president. the democrats are getting frustrated and tired of being in the minority, particulate with the house being as partisan and dysfunctional as it had become. i think it really shows you how she has sort of reach the end of her rope. tom marino, speaking on the house floor, and he was insulting her directly, and accusing her of not caring about the immigration issue, not doing enough to help the immigrants that she talks about, not having calming --ng, a isommon accusation, so this

sort of a version of the accusation he was making. he was accusing her of not knowing her stuff, so i thought she found that particularly galling. so she chased him across the floor, and she's got her finger in his face and she is saying, you are an insignificant person. this is one of her favorite insults, frankly. she has used it many times. you can just see that this was someone who had gotten under her skin. host: our guest is time magazine's molly ball, and here is that moment. .> we do not have law and order we have destroys -- distressed, and my colleagues on the other side do not want to do anything about it. something i find quite interesting, under the leadership of the former speaker

and under the ship -- leadership of their former leader in 2009 and 2010 they had the house and the senate and the white house and they knew this problem existed. they did not have the strength to go after it back then, but now they are trying to make a political issue out of it. what we need to do is pass this legislation and make sure these children get back to their families. we need to line up and protect this border from people coming across. i did the research on it. you might want to try it. you might want to try it, madame leader, do the research. that is one thing that you do not do. it works both ways. with that i urge my colleagues to vote for this legislation because apparently i hit the right nerve. i yield back.

back thelvania yields balance of its time. [applause] there is that moment on the video library. let's get back to your phone calls. this is lisa from new york. caller: good morning. i am looking forward to reading this book because what a disappointment i am feeling with the white man calling into the show. i really want to say that i am hoping and wondering if molly has any idea, what does it take to get people in the senate to fight for this wonderful bill that nancy pelosi just put forward? wonderfulall of these

far-left, they want to call themselves, progressives? i argue they are not. going to stand up and fight for this bailout? i think it is not a matter of how hard the senators are willing to fight. it is up to the leadership to decide whether to put this bill on the floor or do anything with it. rich mcconnell has made it clear that he is not interested in engaging with this in any way. i think democratic senators can scream all they want and it will not make any impression upon the republican leader. at the democrats are attempting to use this as a vehicle to make a point, send a message to say we are doing something for the situation that the american people are in, and the republicans are saying nothing needs to be done. that is a political point that

they are chang to make. so far it as fallen on deaf ears in the white house, but we will see whether it leads to a negotiation, with the democrats are able to use this bill to put pressure on the white house and the senate so they do come to the table. most people believe they will do something eventually. they just are not feeling urgency to deal with this. host: mike is nest joining us from seattle. caller: i hope nancy does something really good for the people before she leaves office because she has a history of making problems and spending money. it is like an athlete that has been around way too long, and the american people have had enough. to gabriel,l go good morning. say thankjust want to

you for everything you have done. you have just been wonderful. ali, i had a question about how the messaging comes across from nancy pelosi because quite often it is difficult for them to get traction with any messages. i wonder when you look at the republicans who are effective at getting some one minor to stick, nancy pelosi struggles with this. i think it has to do with them being out of touch. i would like your comments. her communication style is frequently criticized. i do not know that it has anything to do with how in touch she is. she is just not probably going to be remembered as a great political or tour -- orator. hows also, i do not know

you can say the democrats are not being heard when they did just when a very significant victory in the only national election held since trump was elected. there are some voters who are listening to the democrats. in fact they had a string of victories since 2016. someone is hearing the message. it is getting across. nancy pelosi has been the architect of a lot of these strategies. she has been advocating for a moderate message rather than a far-left message. she is been advocating for a message on issues, particular health care, rather than focusing on the president and his deficiencies. from her perspective, it has contributed to the victories the democrats have enjoyed. how did she meet her husband? guest: they took a summer school

class together. he went to georgetown, and one summer, when she was in college, she stayed in washington and took a summer class at .eorgetown they knew each other a little bit from that, and then they had some mutual friends. they were introduced that way. they started dating, and the rest is history. they met in washington and then when she graduated and they got married, they moved to new york where he worked in banking. were some of the children born, they moved to san francisco. from our last call is harrisburg, pennsylvania. caller: the bottom line is people do not like her. she is below mitch mcconnell. you could double her popularity

and it does not even reach trump. she makes a fool of herself all the time and she just seems to be like someone who is enamored by people like your guest, and that is it. generally the american public despises her. this depends on which paul you look at. in recent years she has been among the more popular congressional leaders. i'm not trying to argue that she is popular, but she has become more popular recently. she is all had a very polarizing public persona. her allies will argue that that is mostly the republicans's fault for airing these attack ads against her. she professes to be unbothered by it. she is not interested in her public reputation. she is interested in what she can get done at the house. that is the role of a leader. it is true that there are a lot

of people who do not like nancy pelosi. i think she would say, so what, is that what people remember about the great leaders of history? it is what about they got done, what they accomplished. she would argue that she has accomplished quite a lot. conclude where you conclude the book and paraphrase this story, and you read the following, during her first it as speaker, she traveled there in a few hours i excellency tog payload. in the and, -- in the end, it did not matter what they called her. her up in a sums nutshell. she ignores all of the name-calling and the abuse, the people who have negative opinions about her. she has always focused on results and on getting things

done. her abilities to do that are pretty unparalleled in the modern era. host: what was the story all about? about? to afghanistan. she stopped in kuwait first and the kuwaitis treated her almost as royalty. was in the military plane that was supposed to take her to the airbase, they started trying to take her somewhere else instead and she was telling the pilot you're supposed to take me to bagram and he didn't believe her so he got on the radio and said payload is saying we are supposed to go to bagram. wentfunny that her title from excellency to payload in a metal -- matter of minutes. host: the book is >> with the federal government

at work in d.c. and rub the country, use the congressional directory for contact information of members of congress, governors, and members of agencies. order your copy today at c-span store.org. >> c-span's "washington journal" live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. coming up monday morning, we will talk about the federal response to the coronavirus pandemic with the hill's reid wilson. we will also speak to adrian smith of the ways and means committee. and then a discussion about how the republican and democratic hearties are preparing for nominating conventions this summer amid the pandemic with john ward. and jessica taylor on the key races in the battle for the senate this fall. watch c-span's "washington journal" live at 7:00 eastern

monday morning. join the discussion. cbs "face the nation," house speaker nancy pelosi was asked about working with republicans on coronavirus relief legislation and the possibility of liability protections for businesses. after that, we will hear from alex azar on efforts to develop a vaccine. >> republicans are looking at a different deadline, that -- say that the enhanced unemployment benefits do not expire until let's see what a new package july. should be tailored to. why do you think there is not merit to that argument that a few more weeks before crafting a bill could be more effective? speaker pelosi: time is of the essence, and in the past bills