45
trillion dollars in cuts and revenue. Fail-
ure to do so would trigger automatic
across-the-board cuts to the entire fed-
eral budget. Pelosi, now at the table, se-
cured important concessions: the trigger
would hit defense spending just as hard
as domestic spending, and there would
be no changes to Social Security, Medi-
care or Medicaid. Democrats hated the
deal— Representative Emanuel Cleaver,
a pastor from Kansas City, Mo., called it
a “sugar-coated Satan sandwich”—but
the bill passed with 95 Democratic votes.
This pattern would define the remain-
der of the Obama presidency: a cycle of
crisis, featuring marginalized Democrats,
recalcitrant Republicans, a White House
unwilling or unable to strategize around
them, and a government that could barely
keep the lights on, much less solve any of
the nation’s pressing problems. Another
recurring feature of this depressing cycle:
Pelosi, the congressional leader with the
longest track record of reaching across the
aisle, was routinely cast aside. When she
forced her way into the room, problems
generally got solved. But it didn’t seem to
occur to the men in charge to invite her
in the next time.
Pelosi’s current efforts have a
political goal: as the November election
nears, she wants to show that Democrats
are focused on governing responsibly.
It’s why she’s urged the party’s candi-
dates to focus on kitchen-table issues
and realistic plans; it’s also why she re-
sisted impeachment for the better part
of a year, then pushed for a short and
simple process.
“The message has to be one that is
not menacing,” she told me in Decem-
ber, when both impeachment and the
presidential primary were in full swing.
“People love change, but they also are
menaced by it.” The liberal platform that
resonates in her San Francisco district,
she said, may not go over as well in swing
states like Michigan that Democrats need
to win the Electoral College. She cited
single- payer health care as an example:
“I think it’s menacing to say to people, in
order to get this tomorrow, we’re taking
away your private insurance.”
Pelosi’s political future isn’t something
she talks about—when I mentioned the
idea of the “twilight” of her career, she
snapped at me—but in 2018, she accepted
a term-limit agreement that would force
her to step down in 2022. Privately, as I
reveal for the first time in the book, she
told confidants at the time that she ex-
pected the current term to be her last.
The legacy she leaves will be a complex
one. As the first female Speaker, she shat-
tered the “marble ceiling,” but her dreams
of a woman President were dashed in
2016 and 2020, and she leaves no obvi-
ous female successor. She cites the Af-
fordable Care Act as her greatest achieve-
ment, but Republicans have succeeded in
undermining it and Democrats argue it
doesn’t go far enough. Despite her will-
ingness to deal, Congress is a gridlocked
mess with dismally low approval ratings.
When I asked Pelosi what she still
wants to accomplish, she pointed to the
problem of income inequality and the
“existential threat” of climate change.
Pelosi’s House passed a cap-and-trade
bill in 2009, but it never advanced in the
Senate; save for a resolution last year in
favor of the Paris Agreement, it remains
the only major climate legislation ever to
pass a house of Congress.
“Our work is not finished,” she said,
“when it comes to improv-
ing the lives of the Ameri-
can people.”
Adapted from Pelosi, by
Molly Ball, to be published
on May 5
^
Pelosi, addressing the media on
March 27, has been at the center of a
rare burst of bipartisan legislation
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