In new book, Pelosi denies conflict between ACA and her Catholic faith

Transcript

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Nancy Pelosi has a book out today. It's a book that no one else could have written. It's titled "The Art of Power: My Story As America's First Woman Speaker Of The House." Last week, the former speaker came by NPR studios in Washington, D.C., to speak with our colleague, ALL THINGS CONSIDERED host Mary Louise Kelly. They talked about her book, about Joe Biden's exit from the presidential race and about criticism that the Affordable Care Act conflicted with her Catholic faith. Mary Louise takes it from here.

MARY LOUISE KELLY, BYLINE: The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops opposed the ACA. They were worried it would provide federal funding for abortion. You reached out to Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, now the late...

NANCY PELOSI: Yeah.

KELLY: ...Cardinal Francis George. What did he say when you asked for his support?

PELOSI: Well, I called him to say, thank you for taking my call. It's my honor to be speaking with you. I wanted to talk to you about the Affordable Care Act, which is consistent with the compact that Catholics have to have healthcare. Well, I don't want to talk if you're going to talk about killing unborn babies. And I thought, well, this is a waste of time 'cause we're not talking about killing unborn babies. There's nothing in this legislation that funds abortion. See, what the church was trying to do then was to do away with Roe v. Wade, so this was part of their path. And what brought almost tears to my eyes - because I've worked with some of these people on other issues over time - is they said, I've never seen the bishops so united as they are against the Affordable Care Act, which was part of a Catholic thing, to provide healthcare for people.

KELLY: Did that whole experience shake your faith at all?

PELOSI: No. My faith isn't about bishops. My faith is about God. No, that didn't - thank goodness, no.

KELLY: But how do you square that? The bishops, the leaders of this church, which you have spent your life in...

PELOSI: Yeah.

KELLY: ...Were so opposed to something that you so clearly felt was right.

PELOSI: No, they're opposed to LGBTQ. They're opposed to in vitro fertilization. You know, they're opposed to a lot of things. That's really their problem, not mine. My faith is very deep. Again, I grew up in it, but I love it.

KELLY: One more on this, since you brought up Roe v. Wade, and we are now in a post-Roe world. I think we all have questions about reproductive rights in America going forward. My specific question to you is, what can Congress do? What's the role of Congress now?

PELOSI: Well, we - in the House, when we had the majority, we passed Roe v. Wade to enshrine it as law in our land. We couldn't get that done in the Senate because of the 60-vote requirement.

KELLY: You couldn't get it done today. Yeah. Today.

PELOSI: But - well, we can't pass it in the House now. And so to get to your point, what has to happen, I think, is that, of course, we have to win the election. We have to win the Senate in a way that we can push back the filibuster so that when we pass it in the House, it can pass in the Senate with 51 votes and not need 60 votes. You asked, what can Congress do? That's what we can do, but we certainly have to be sure that we elect a Democratic president and Democratic Congress.

MARTIN: Mary Louise Kelly also pressed Nancy Pelosi on Pelosi's role behind the scenes, as President Biden weighed whether to drop out of the 2024 race.

PELOSI: I read in the press that I was burning up the phone lines, and I only called one person. People called me. Some of them I received their calls. Some of them I didn't have even time to. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.