NP: Well, what happened was that, in the 1990s, Newt Gingrich initiated the politics of personal destruction when he went after the Clintons. The people that were our friends across the aisle all of a sudden were calling us “treasonous” and “traitors” and all the rest—because that was [Gingrich’s] lingo that helped keep him in power, and that elected some of those people with the money he raised with that message.

So it’s very different, and it’s so sad, because to disagree is part of a democracy. We have different points of view. We do not have a monarchy. We have a beautiful diversity of opinions in our country. And the wonderful challenge of coming to Congress was to be able to debate your point of view, to listen to others, to understand the leverage you had to either win the day or to come out with a high split on it, and to recognize that tomorrow is another day, and there’ll be other fights to fight. So we were all a resource to each other on both sides of the aisle, and we didn’t want to weaken anybody. That’s what [changed] in the ’90s. But then it was exacerbated, of course, in the 2000s.

JN: Elections took on a win-at-any-cost character.

NP: Yes, it’s most unfortunate, because we want people to have confidence in government—to respect the differences of opinion that we have and how we debate them. But if all they know about government is what they see in campaigns, and they see what you just described, it’s very disconcerting to the public.

We are a democracy, and that confidence that the public has in the process is very important. That’s why we have to try to unify the country again.

Look, Donald Trump did not invent some of the negativism that is out there due to insecurities that some people have—being afraid of the progress of women and minorities and LGBTQ people and the rest of that. But he certainly exploited it, normalized it, and blew it up. He’s incompetent in every way when it comes to governance, but he is a capable snake oil salesman.

JN: When did you first realize that President Trump was going to be not just a difficult or a complicated opponent, but a dangerously dishonest opponent?

NP: We saw it in the very first meeting that we had with him—the meeting of the bipartisan leadership of the House and Senate with the president of the United States…. The meeting [began] with the president leaning on the table, with his arms on the table, and his first words…were, “You know, I won the popular vote.”

JN: When, in fact, he didn’t.

NP: I said, “No, you didn’t, Mr. President—that’s not true. You did not win the popular vote.” So that was our first meeting with the president, and that was so disappointing…. And then it was just one disappointment after another. As you know, [Republicans] had the majority at that time, and the only thing they did was pass a tax bill that [was projected to give] 83 percent of the benefits to the top 1 percent, adding 2 trillion—that’s trillion—dollars to the national debt. And then saying we couldn’t afford things like feeding the children and the rest.

JN: You have said that it “became clearer and clearer that his patriotism was in doubt.” But you still had to deal with him. When you ripped up the State of the Union address after he finished speaking in 2020, what was going through your head?

NP: Well, here’s the thing, I certainly had no intention when I went to that [joint session of Congress] to do that…. But on the first page, he was lying. So I just tore the page [to mark where the lies were], so I could go back to this page to see where he was lying. And then I realized he was lying on every page. Every page had a tear where he had lied. And it was so disrespectful of the Congress. It was horrible.

So that’s what was going through my mind. It was a manifesto of lies, and that’s why I tore it up.

JN: After Biden was elected, you were able to pass a great deal of legislation—even though the House Democratic majority was small. How did you hold the caucus together?

NP: We know why we’re there. We know whose purpose we were serving, and that is America’s working families…. So that’s why it was possible—not easy, but possible—to get these things done. And I’m a legislator; I love doing that. I just… I just love doing that.

JN: What’s been your proudest accomplishment as a member of Congress?

NP: There’s no question: It will be the Affordable Care Act—just springing from Martin Luther King Jr. saying, of all the inequality that is out there, the most [widespread] and inhuman is the inequality to [health]. For 100 years, presidents had tried to provide access to quality healthcare for Americans, for many more Americans, without success. We came in [in 2009, as a Congress with solid Democratic 
majorities and a Democratic president] with this as a priority, with it as an aspiration and a determination to get the job done…. The insurance companies ruled the roost. They called the shots on all that had happened before, and we changed the leverage to be for the people.

JN: San Francisco, your political base, has in the last quarter-century produced one woman leader after another: Dianne Feinstein, Barbara Boxer, yourself, and now Kamala Harris. What is it about San Francisco?

NP: We have respect for people. We’re not afraid of diversity…. We believe that women in politics is not a zero-sum game; if one person succeeds, it doesn’t mean “OK, that’s it, we have one woman.” It doesn’t mean that at all. It means every woman’s success is every woman’s success, and that just keeps opening doors to more success.

Kamala, I know her personally. She’s a person of great faith, deep faith, which is manifested in her love of community, her public service, her civic involvement from early on…. She’s politically astute. If she were not that, she would not be where she is today…. She’s wonderful. We’re so thrilled. I almost can get emotional talking about it.

But I’m glad she’s not running a campaign that says, [“Vote for me] because I’m a woman.” When I ran for speaker, it was “Don’t vote for me because I’m a woman. Don’t vote against me because I’m a woman. Listen to what I have to say.” And I think that she’s taking that path in her own right, very successfully.

Just because she’s not running [a campaign that focuses on the fact that she’s] as a woman, but as one who is for the whole country, she has great appeal to women for all that we want for women in the workplace—women to have access to quality, affordable child care, child tax credit, universal pre-K, family and medical leave, home health care—so women and men who are caregivers can have more success in the workplace. And she recognizes that women are entrepreneurs too. Her economic approach is about recognizing that if women are going to reach their full fulfillment, we need to help.

JN: There is much talk about the role you played, or may have played, in working with President Biden in this transition that saw him end his reelection bid and clear the way for Kamala Harris. How do you see what happened?

NP: The president made his own decision. He made a decision, and he said it so eloquently: “I love being president. I love this job, but I love America, our country, more.” That’s why he passed the torch. His legacy is a great one. I don’t think it’s fully appreciated, and we want to make sure that it is—because it’s not only his legacy; it’s our legacy as congressional Democrats as well. His decision is one that was selfless, patriotic, and courageous.