Transcript of Pelosi Interview on CNN's Anderson Cooper 360

Washington, D.C. – Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer sat down with CNN's Jamie Gangel for their first ever joint interview to discuss the accomplishments of the Democratic Congress and their longstanding working relationship and friendship. The interview aired tonight on CNN's Anderson Cooper 360.Below are their remarks:

Jamie Gangel.What are you going to have?

Speaker Pelosi. I think I'm going to get dumplings.

Leader Schumer. Hi. Sorry I'm late. Hot and sour soup, that's what I'm going to have.

Speaker Pelosi. Okay.

Leader Schumer. Nice bowl of soup on a cold day.

Speaker Pelosi. There you go.

Jamie Gangel. You actually first met at a meal like this in 1987?

Leader Schumer. It was like January. And George Miller, who was my roommate – my landlord – but he said, ‘There's a new person joining our group. Her name is Nancy Pelosi. She's the new Congress Member from San Francisco. And she' – before I met her – ‘she will become the first woman Speaker.' That's what he said. That's the truth.

Jamie Gangel. He was right.

Speaker Pelosi. But what was interesting about it –

Leader Schumer. She didn't know he was right.

Jamie Gangel. You really knew the first time you met her?

Leader Schumer. Well, I knew she would really be a force.

Speaker Pelosi. Whatever that might be,

Waitress. Hello, would you like some appetizers?

Leader Schumer. So, I'll have an order of shrimp dumplings.

Waitress. Okay.

Leader Schumer. And then I'll have some string beans.

Jamie Gangel. Talk to me about your relationship. The two of you finish each other's sentences. You're on the phone constantly. 45 –

Leader Schumer. 455-730 and I'm not going to say the rest.

Speaker Pelosi. No, please.

Jaime Gangel. You know everybody's phone number?

Leader Schumer. I probably dial hers more than just about anyone other than people in my family.

Speaker Pelosi. Well, here's the thing, I say this all the time, he has a – what do you call that phone?

Leader Schumer. A flip phone.

Speaker Pelosi. A flip phone. If he had a regular smartphone, we could reduce the number of conversations, because I could just text him.

Jamie Gangel. How would you describe your relationship? You're called the power couple, you're called an odd couple.

Speaker Pelosi. We're friends.

Leader Schumer. We're close friends. It's almost like brother and sister.

Speaker Pelosi. That's right.

Jamie Gangel. When you disagree, who – which usually wins?

Leader Schumer. Usually her.

Speaker Pelosi. No, no. When we disagree, then we end the conversation. And we know we're going to come back –

Leader Schumer. We had a pretty tough one a week ago. Right? What was it?

Jamie Gangel. What was it about?

Leader Schumer. I don't even remember

Speaker Pelosi. I don't remember what it was, but it was, shall we say, candid?

Leader Schumer. Candid.

Jamie Gangel. I want to talk about how the two of you navigated working with former President Trump, because –

Leader Schumer. We had a good time.

Jamie Gangel. Because he famously nicknamed the two of you, ‘Chuck and Nancy.' Right? It was always ‘Chuck and Nancy.' I think you both knew that Speaker Pelosi got under his skin. Right?

Leader Schumer. Yes.

Jamie Gangel. Was there a strategy when you went into a meeting? Was there a good cop, bad cop?

Speaker Pelosi. He's just inaugurated. This is a historic moment, the President of the United States. So I'm thinking, ‘How is he going to begin? Is he going to quote the Constitution, American history, poet, the Bible? ‘You know, I won the popular vote.'

Leader Schumer. That's how he started.

Speaker Pelosi. And I said, ‘Mr. President, that's just not true.'

Leader Schumer. We sort of set him up instinctively. We didn't plan this. Everyone thought we planned it out. It was about the government shutdown, the first time. And Nancy said something to him about, he didn't understand – what – about women – so –

Speaker Pelosi. Chuck was masterful. He was masterful.

Leader Schumer. Well, she set him up, so I could go in for the kill.

Speaker Pelosi. But he was masterful. He's talking to him about the government shutdown, about immigrants and the rest. And he says, ‘I have taken ownership of the shutdown.'

Leader Schumer. I said, ‘So Mr. President, you'll – will you own the shutdown?' ‘Yes, I will.' And that was –

Waitress. Here's your shrimp dumplings.

Leader Schumer. Oh, thank you very much.

Jamie Gangel. There are a series of moments that you saw first-hand. There's the clap. There's tearing up the speech. And then there is the famous picture. It's the meeting in the Cabinet Room, where you stood up and confronted. Looking back at those moments, what was going through your mind?

Leader Schumer. I said he doesn't stand a chance.

[Laughter]

He doesn't know what he's up against. I tell people, Nancy instinctively knew how to handle Trump, because for her first, you know, 35, 40 years of life, she raised five children. She knew how to deal with children. And that's what helped her deal with Trump, because he ultimately was a child.

Speaker Pelosi. We had a different approach. Chuck as a New Yorker.

Leader Schumer. Brooklyn.

Speaker Pelosi. Brooklyn. So they spoke their own kind of – they understood each other.

Jamie Gangel. January 6th, there is extraordinary footage of the two of you being evacuated. What was it like that day?

Speaker Pelosi. It was horrible. I mean, it was a horrible time and –

Leader Schumer. Striking. People were invading the Capitol. We were both worried about our own Members, the Senators in my Senate, the people in her House, what was happening to them, because they whisked us off to this other place. For a while, cell phone service didn't happen. And it was just frightening.

Jamie Gangel. Did you try to reach out to the President himself?

Leader Schumer. Yes. They wouldn't put him on. The Attorney General, the Acting – I think he was Acting Attorney General. He wouldn't put him on.

Jamie Gangel. He wouldn't take your calls?

Leader Schumer. The President wouldn't, that's correct.

Speaker Pelosi. I think you see in some of the film how firm Chuck was when we were calling the governors, the mayors, the Secretary – and we were talking to the Secretary of the Army, the Attorney General. The Secretary of the Army was supposed – it's really a tragedy that they did not send the National Guard earlier.

Leader Schumer. They were sort of afraid to act. Trump had so intimidated everybody, you could never tell him the truth. You could never go contradict them.

Have some Peking duck. It's good. I'm eating too much.

Jamie Gangel. There's a CNN poll that just came out that shows there's little appetite on both sides for a Biden-Trump rematch in 2024. You're stepping aside. Do you think President Biden should step aside for a younger generation?

Speaker Pelosi. I think President Biden has done an excellent job as President of the United States. I hope that he does seek reelection. He's been a great President.

Leader Schumer. Look at what he's accomplished.

Jamie Gangel. You think he should run again?

Leader Schumer. Yeah, he's done an excellent, excellent job. Andhe runs, I'm going to support him all the way.

Jamie Gangel. Right now, Donald Trump is the only Republican who has announced. He could be the nominee. He could be President again. You've been through the first presidency. You've been through January 6th. What would it mean if Donald Trump was reelected President?

Leader Schumer. I don't think it will happen. The American people have gotten wise to him. It took a little while, but they did.

Speaker Pelosi. I don't think that we should talk about him while we're eating.

[Laughter]

Leader Schumer. See?

Speaker Pelosi. Really? Another Trump presidency?

Jamie Gangel. You call Donald Trump, quote, ‘insane.'