WASHINGTON – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was awakened by a banging on the door.
“I was sure they’d come to the wrong apartment,” she told USA Today. But when she heard Capitol Police guards in the hallway outside her Washington apartment, she opened the door. They told her her husband had been attacked by intruders at their San Francisco home. She said she didn’t know if he survived.
Nancy Patricia D’Alesandro Pelosi has spent her life commanding and controlling the political world. As Speaker of the House, she was the most powerful woman in U.S. history. Her new book, published Tuesday by Simon & Schuster, is called “The Art of Power.”
But she was unable to protect her husband from assailants who broke into the home in the middle of the night with zip ties and a hammer, smashing the glass in the back door and searching for her.
“That coincided with the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021,” she said. “People were saying in the halls of Congress, ‘Where’s Nancy? Where’s Nancy?’ (And) he came into our bedroom in San Francisco and said that.”
Paul Pelosi, 82, and her husband of 60 years, was severely injured. His skull was fractured by three blows from the hammer. His left hand was so badly damaged that a plastic surgeon had to reconstruct it in multiple operations before he could use it again. He suffered from dizziness and had to avoid bright lights and noise.
But he survived.
“We’re hopeful that in two years we’ll have a break,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, which will be Oct. 28. “He’s still recovering. He’s doing well — about 80 percent, I’d say — but he’s still hitting his head, and the way he’s progressing, we’re hopeful he’ll be back to where he was pretty soon.”
The two never spoke about what happened that night.
“I never discussed it with my husband,” she said. “He never discussed it with us, with his family, with me.” Though he testified in court, it’s still too painful for him to revisit the case. His assailant, a right-wing conspiracy theorist, was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison.
“If he’s ready, he will,” she said.
Persuade the President, whether he likes it or not
Pelosi’s 337-page book details four major legislative battles. “I was there,” she said, parodying a line from the musical “Hamilton.” She played key roles in passing the 2008 financial bailout bill and the 2010 Affordable Care Act, as well as leading the opposition to the Iraq War and shaping policy toward China.
Each chapter is a tale of the meticulous and exhausting tenacity that goes into getting big things done in Washington, with occasional nuggets of information useful to legislative enthusiasts.
One example: Republican efforts to repeal the landmark Affordable Care Act were defeated in 2017 when Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona voted against his party in a tense vote. Pelosi made it clear that he had told her in advance what he would do, but not President Donald Trump, Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell or likely anyone else.
As a common thread in all her fights, Pelosi has been prepared to take on presidents, from Democrats Bill Clinton and Barack Obama to Republicans George W. Bush and Trump, and deliver tough messages.
And more recently, to President Joe Biden.
Ms. Pelosi was a key voice behind the scenes as Democrats engaged in tense discussions last month about whether Mr. Biden, 81, should give up his reelection bid after his disastrous televised defeat against Mr. Trump, according to people familiar with the matter. That discussion included a key phone call in which she told Mr. Biden that polls not only showed him losing to Mr. Trump, but also threatened to drag down the party’s congressional prospects.
She was also basically in the room when it happened, but it’s not one of the incidents she wants to talk about.
“The decision he made was the right decision for him,” she said. “It was his decision, so it has to be the right decision. I mean, it’s his decision.”
Asked about her role in Biden’s decision, she said, “I probably won’t talk about that,” in the same warning “don’t try again” tone she’s grown accustomed to hearing from countless lawmakers and others over her years in politics.
Has this incident affected her relationship with Biden?
“I’ll have to ask him that,” she said, adding that she loved and respected her colleague for nearly 40 years and thought he was worthy of a spot on Mount Rushmore “given the magnitude of his contributions to our country.”
Will she ever feel safe again?
Pelosi is running for a 20th term as a representative of San Francisco in 2024, and is almost certain to be able to stay in office as long as she wants. She arrived a little late to the interview, jostled by a throng of congressional interns trying to take selfies after addressing a bipartisan group of 400 people.
She was as assertive and confident as ever, but she also wanted to talk about moments that showed her vulnerability, including an attack on her husband (that was directed at her) and its impact.
“My husband paid the price that night when he was targeting me and I feel a great deal of guilt about that,” she said. “I feel guilty that he was so close to death that he targeted me and used violence against me.”
Paul Pelosi had long been reluctant to return to the Garden Room, his favorite spot to watch sports on TV and smoke the occasional cigar, because that’s where the intruder broke in. He no longer went near the elevator where they’d tried to escape the assailants, and he no longer slept in the bedroom unless his girlfriend was with him.
“The wounds from that night will never fully heal,” Nancy Pelosi wrote in her book. “This assault had a truly devastating impact on three generations of our family,” she wrote. “I don’t know if we will ever feel safe.”
Does she feel safe now?
“Even before that, I don’t know if I ever did it because of the violence and comments that were being showered on me,” she said. “I was depicted as the devil, with ripped legs, a hood, horns on my head, a burning devil, that sort of thing,” she said. People were threatening her, saying, “‘We’re going to burn your house down,’ ‘We know where your grandchildren are,'” she said.
Asked what could be done to lessen the toxicity and anger in American politics, she pointed to Trump’s defeat in November, and she expressed optimism that fellow San Francisco Democrat and presidential candidate Kamala Harris would achieve that goal after former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 presidential election.
“I have a lot of respect for (Clinton), but I think this is our better chance right now,” Pelosi said. Democrats need to “work hard on the ground” to increase voter turnout and “communicate a bold, progressive but not intimidating message so people feel comfortable voting for us.”
“And we need the funding to make it happen,” she added.
Now that she’s 84 and has finished the major legislative battles she detailed, what duties does she have left?
“The defeat of Donald Trump,” she said, “and saving our country from an attack on our democracy. That’s it.”
So, if Trump loses, will it be time to retire?
“I’m never one to make myself a lame duck,” she replied, “but I’m here to make him a lame duck, or a duck in some way.”
Susan Page, Washington bureau chief for USA TODAY, is the author of “Madam Speaker: Nancy Pelosi and Lessons in Power,” published in 2021 by Twelve.