Melissa Harris-Perry: [music] It's The Takeaway. I'm Melissa Harris-Perry, and we appreciate you being with us. For over three decades, Nancy Pelosi has represented San Francisco in the US Congress. Now, all month long, we've been highlighting women leading locally, and Nancy Pelosi is a woman whose leadership of a local congressional district has made her arguably the most powerful woman leading the nation. Pelosi's Power is a new Frontline documentary that examines her legacy and leadership. It begins with a chilling scene.

Insurrectionist: Nancy?

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Insurrectionist: Nancy Pelosi? Where you at, Nancy? Nancy?

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Insurrectionist: Where are you, Nancy? We're looking for you.

Melissa Harris-Perry: That's the sound of insurrectionists invading the Capitol on January 6. As you can hear, they are intent on finding Speaker Pelosi. I asked Frontline Director, Michael Kirk, why he chose to start a story about Pelosi's Power, with a moment so fraught with vulnerability.

Michael Kirk: It's one of those things that as you're making a film, you say to yourself, "Oh, my God, I just have to use this because this basically says it all is the Speaker of the House, the first woman ever to hold that position, maybe the most powerful woman in American politics, other than the Vice President of the United States who they want to hang, they're coming for Nancy Pelosi too." That's a chilling moment, both in the personal sense for Pelosi but also in terms of the larger story about the threat to democracy.

Melissa Harris-Perry: I can't even stand to look at the photographs of the boots on her desk, which always felt to me like, given who Speaker Pelosi is, it felt like a particular kind of violation, almost sexual assault in effigy. This capacity to come into her personal space and defile it and take what they want. For you, when you think about that moment of January 6, how much of it is, in fact, gendered toward her?

Michael Kirk: Well, I think the people we talked to, her biographers, other women who are very, very close to her, all of them, the first answer they have for almost everything that's happened to Nancy Pelosi since she got in Congress in 1987, the first thing they always say is, "It's all about gender first." It's about lots of other things. She came with an important agenda, she was determined to really, really get in there and do things. AIDS was one of her primary issues back in the day when that wasn't a primary issue for almost anybody else, but it's all about gender first, to all the women we talked to who know her well, and in some ways, speak for her.

Melissa Harris-Perry: You also begin the film with this language about power. Of course, it's Pelosi's Power, and this notion that she comes from a family where wielding power is a bit like breathing air or drinking water, it is made normal. Yet, for her, embodied as she, she's actually a diminutive person. She's small, she is a mom and grandmom. She's devoutly Catholic and yet, she, nonetheless, in that personhood that we might not think of as being comfortable wielding power, she wields it, nonetheless.

Michael Kirk: Guess what? A woman can be all of these things at the same time. [laughs] Just what a revelation. I'm glad she personifies all of that, though, for many, many, many men who might watch this film, especially Republican men who hate her, really hate her. She's their number one fundraising target. They make more money off of the name Nancy Pelosi than almost anything else they complain about.

Yes, power was ingrained in her from a very early age. Her father was the mayor of Baltimore, a classic democratic word boss. Her mom was this unbelievably powerful, behind-the-scenes woman who has Nancy as the only daughter, five brothers, watch this happen. It's all inside of her. Like one person, Susan Page, one of her biographers, says, "It's like electricity in that house or running water. It was just power all the time, everywhere."

She really has it as a default, all the way to being the only woman in most of the rooms she is in in Congress when she gets there. By the time she's a minority leader, she's in the White House. They're talking about the Equal Rights Amendment, and she realizes, "My God, this has been talked about, such a central thing for women for decades. Here I am, the first woman who's ever been in this room for that conversation." Of course, it's a good thing she has all the power that would be required.

One other just interesting, fun fact, is when she gets to Congress in 1987, she's one of only 23 Women of the 435 members of Congress, of the House of Representatives. Many of those other women are women who are widows, who inherited their husbands' seats in one state or another. Here she is, 47 years old, has already raised five children born in a six-year span if you can believe that. She's done all of that and been a major fundraiser for the Democratic Party at the same time.

Now, a member of Congress, who, while she's being sworn in, her father is in a wheelchair right over her shoulder. You see, he became a member of Congress too for five terms. There she is, with everything required to be who she's become, and a real mountain to climb ahead of her.

Melissa Harris-Perry: You've talked a little bit about her family of origin from whence she comes, but then also about these children, her five children. You were actually able to get her daughter Christine Pelosi to be part of this documentary. Talk to me a bit about that decision, and the way that Christine thinks about and speaks about her mother.

Michael Kirk: In an interesting way, often, when you make a biographical film, you want everybody who's as close as possible, and then you usually whittle it down to who's the best, who's the closest. Christine, in this case, it just feels to me like she's channeling her mother in lots of ways, except she brings a much younger generation's perspective to it. Very, very, very interesting.

When memes are created about Nancy after she leaves the Oval Office battle with Donald Trump where she's wearing that red coat, and all these memes jump out, and suddenly, Nancy Pelosi is cool on Facebook and on the web. She calls her daughter from the car, and Christine has to explain to her what a meme is, and that she is actually one and even her coat has a Facebook and a Twitter handle.

She was fantastic in her insight into her mom. The insight of most of the women who know and have worked for Nancy Pelosi is very, very, very honest and candid. Of course, they all love her, but they also are honest and candid about the things, the challenges that she's faced and met, and the truth about her as well.

Melissa Harris-Perry: You've talked a bit about how Republicans have vilified Speaker Pelosi and have also, in fact, used her as a tool for fundraising, a kind of way to point all of their aggressions and angers. She has some challenges within the Democratic Party as well. When we think about power, and the way that she has wielded, it has not been exclusively across the party line, but often, and maybe most crucially, within the party. As you talked with journalists. As you talked with others for this film, what did they say about the ways that Democrats, and maybe particularly younger Democrats, think about Pelosi's power?

Michael Kirk: Here's an 81-year-old woman who knows how to wield power, knows everything, they tell me, about every one of her members in her caucus, everything. The children's names, what their problems are, what it took for them to run, what they stand for, everything. You're now in the middle of the Trump administration, it's 2018, and she's going out personally on a crusade to get what ends up being called the Blue Wave to happen.

A lot of new women are suddenly in the Congress and some of them become members of what they call "The Squad". They are like many new people who win election, full of ideas, full of enthusiasm, full of energy and not full of the traditions, and not willing to wait around for the way power has usually been dealt with.

They, no doubt ask for a lot and Pelosi, Nancy Pelosi, Speaker Pelosi was not as willing to just listen to them. There were real arguments between the members of "The Squad" and Pelosi and she was not generous in how she talked about them, she would say, "So you have 5 million or 500,000, you're influencing that many people on your Instagram page, that's not power, that's just influence. I have power, real power is the power to vote and the power to use votes to your advantage. They are only four votes and I have to deal with getting 215 or 218 votes. If they're not willing to play, it doesn't really matter to me. I'll get those votes elsewhere."

That battle between the new women and Nancy Pelosi, a woman who's been fighting this war for a long time, is truly fascinating. It's an interesting part of the film, because it's a film, and it can only be 90 minutes long, it's a piece of that film, I would love to go back to some time, and really explore the implications of all of that, as we watch things like the Green New Deal, and other pieces of legislation that "The Squad" wants done. See it happen, how does it happen? How do the deals get cut? How impactful is Nancy Pelosi?

Now, this is all potentially academic because an election is coming in the fall, which could render her back in the political wilderness but if they win, I promise you that those arguments will be front and center inside her caucus as the progressive wing, which she used to be the standard-bearer for and the others inside the party, battle it out for preeminence and access to Nancy Pelosi.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Maybe we'll come to exactly that moment, the upcoming midterm elections. Throughout this film, one of the key narrative through lines is about Pelosi's understanding of democracy, her commitment to a particular version of the American project, which includes more voices and more opportunity for so many who have been pushed out of the process. If in fact, Republicans win a majority in the House of Representatives in the fall in this midterm, and Nancy Pelosi is no longer the speaker of the house, what do you think is next for Nancy Pelosi, given how much she's done, how much she's given, and her age and her own position within her Democratic Party?

Michael Kirk: Well, it's a question I asked a lot of people and they all say she's a warrior, and she's engaged in the war and at 81, she has decided to run again, her seat, apparently, in San Francisco is something of a lot she's been reelected with ease over the years. That's not the problem, but it's very tough to be a minority leader nowadays, especially in the Congress that will be up and coming if the largely Trump Republican party wins. There's not going to be a lot of bipartisanship, opportunities there and there's nothing worse they tell me than being in the political wilderness once you've been the speaker.

All Democrats in the Congress will, especially the House of Representatives will find themselves on an island, I suspect, trying to find ways to get things done and I think that will promise to be harder and harder. It'll be interesting to see how she reacts she had eight years from 2010 to 2018 in the wilderness. She fought she stayed with it, she kept Trump on as dishonest as she could. She fought with him. She was his nemesis, even from the outside.

It would be interesting to see if she continues to play that kind of a role and tries to bring the caucus with her in the combat that promises to be happening in Washington in 2023 if the Republicans win. At least according to what everybody tells me, it's going to be a war.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Well, based on this film, I just watched that you made if there's going to be a war Nancy Pelosi might very well still be quite ready for it. Michael Kirk is Frontline Director of the new documentary Pelosi's Power. Thank you for joining us today.

Michael Kirk: My pleasure Mellissa.

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