USA TODAY Washington Bureau Chief Susan Page today released her new book \u201cMadam Speaker: Nancy Pelosi and the Lessons of Power.\u201d<\/p>\n
Page\u2019s biography of Nancy Pelosi is the inside story of how the most powerful woman in American political history outwitted her foes, dominated the Democratic Party with an \u201ciron fist in a Gucci glove\u201d and stood up to Donald Trump. Page interviewed House Speaker Pelosi 10 times during the past two years for her biography and spoke exclusively with more than 150 friends, family members and notable political allies and adversaries \u2013 including Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Boehner and Newt Gingrich.<\/p>\n
Leading up to today\u2019s release, USA TODAY published two exclusive excerpts from \u201cMadam Speaker\u201d by Page: How Donald Trump upended Pelosi’s plans, then she unraveled his\u00a0and How Ted Kennedy and Pelosi pushed Barack Obama to go big on health\u00a0care.<\/p>\n
“Nancy Pelosi is incredibly comfortable with power in a way that very few people are. And especially very few women are,\u00a0especially of her generation,” Page told USA TODAY Editor-in-Chief Nicole Carroll during an interview about her book for \u201cThe Backstory\u201d newsletter last week. “She’s comfortable with that because she grew up in this home that had tremendous power in it. And that goes to both the father and the mother.”<\/p>\n
Page\u2019s book on Pelosi is her latest biography since her 2019 book on the life and impact of First Lady Barbara Bush. Her first biography, \u201cThe Matriarch: Barbara Bush and the Making of an American Dynasty,\u201d is a New York Times best-seller.<\/p>\n
Speaking to her decision to make Pelosi the subject of her next biography after \u201cThe Matriarch,\u201d Page told Carroll, “She had the two things I wanted. She had been consequential. She’d done things and she had been unrecognized or underestimated.”<\/p>\n
Page has covered seven White House administrations and 11 presidential campaigns. She has interviewed the past 10 presidents and reported from six continents and dozens of foreign countries. In 2020, Page moderated the vice-presidential debate between Mike Pence and Kamala Harris.<\/p>\n
More information about \u201cMadam Speaker,\u201d published by Twelve Books, can be found here.<\/p>\n