How do you properly summarize a giant like Nancy Pelosi? You speak to those who knew her best. Ashley Etienne, former communications director and senior advisor to Nancy Pelosi, joins Jen to reflect on Pelosi’s legislative legacy.
Etienne remarks that Nancy Pelosi is the most intense, strategic, “prolific legislator” in our lifetime. Tune in to this insightful sit-down between Etienne and Jen to learn more about the woman who made history, despised downtime, and remained calm under pressure in order to protect her staff during January 6th, 2021.
Ashley Etienne is a veteran communications strategist who served as the communications director for Vice President Kamala Harris and the communications director and senior advisor to Nancy Pelosi. She became the first woman and person of color to hold the position of Communications Director for the House Speaker when Pelosi assumed the position.
The following transcript has been edited for formatting.
Jen Rubin
Hi, this is Jen Rubin, editor-in-Chief of The Contrarian. I am thrilled to have Ashley Etienne, who is a marvel in the communications biz. She has worked for everyone and anyone, and most importantly, she’s worked not once, but twice for Nancy Pelosi, and in light of her announced retirement, which is almost hard to believe. Ashley was good enough to join us. It’s so nice to see you, Ashley, thank you.
Ashley Etienne
Thank you, Jen. Thanks for having me, and to your point, it’s a sad day. It’s definitely the end of an era, but I felt very blessed to have been in those rooms with Speaker Pelosi, and I learned from her, and watched her work, and you know, it’s lessons that I’ll take with me, and that I think, you know, are transferable to every aspect of my life, so excited to talk about it, yeah.
Jen Rubin
Let’s talk about the first time you joined her. When was that, and how did you wind up in that position?
Ashley Etienne
Yeah, I was running communications for the oversight committee, so we had just done Benghazi, Fast and Furious, all those big investigations, and I was unsure of what I was gonna do, but I felt like my time had run out with Mr. Cummings, and I’d done everything I wanted to do there. I met with Pelosi’s team, and they were like, you know, we’ve been watching you, what do you think about working for Nancy? And I was like working for Nancy? I want to be Nancy Pelosi! I don’t just want to work for her. I want to embody everything that she actually is. Steely, fearless, you know, deeply committed to the country and the Constitution, you know, beautiful, stylish, doting wife and grandmother. We all wanted to be all of those things. So I started to work for her, I think it may have been 2014, I started working for her, and I did a couple of years there, and then got called by the Obama White House to go work here.
Jen Rubin
So, what was she like as a boss?
Ashley Etienne
You know, this is a question I get asked most often, is what was it like working for Nancy Pelosi? And I usually just refer to one word, and that’s intense. You know, she is intense. If she were to call me right now, I think I’d become overwhelmed and overcome with anxiety. I mean, she’s, you know… and I would be questioning what I don’t know, because somehow she’s got, like, a sixth sense to figure out what you don’t know, you know? But it was intense, but it was beyond that.
For me, it was… you know, I do believe Nancy Pelosi is an object lesson, not just in power and leadership, but she taught me, you know, all of those things about how to build it, how to wield it, when to, you know, when to spend it, how, in terms of leadership, the clarity of purpose, the conviction, the deep sense of responsibility to the country. I got all of that. But I also got aspects that I think most women don’t get unless you work for a powerful woman, and that is how to be a woman in power. And those were sort of the intangible things that I learned from her. Like, you know, the fact that you can be all of these things, the woman that I just described earlier, and not one of these women contradict or compromise the other. You can be a 360 woman and put your Manolo in Putin’s ass, you know what I mean, and still dote on your husband and your grandchildren. So she taught me, really all of that. I mean, you know, I haven’t really completely found the words to describe everything that I’ve learned from her, but I can tell you I am more aware of my own power, as she would say.
Jen Rubin
Wow.
Ashley Etienne
I remember in the middle of impeachment, I put my, right after the Mueller investigation, you were there and threw it all, and it failed. It sort of just died, you know, a slow death, terribly, and I just thought, you know, I came back to work for the Speaker for this reason, to run the opposition to Donald Trump, and here we are. I missed the moment, we missed our opportunity, and that’s kind of how I felt. I remember putting my head on Dick Meltzer’s desk, who was our policy director, and I started crying, and I told him, I said, you know, this man’s Teflon, nothing’s sticking on him.
And he said to me at the time, you know, you’re trying to do something no one’s done. You’re trying to, to take down the emperor. Why did you ever think it was gonna be easy? Then Pelosi comes over in that moment and says to me, you’ve got to understand and know your own power. I brought you back here from the White House for a reason. If you don’t know what it is, and if you don’t know what your power is, you’re of no use to us or the country. So you’ve got to figure it out. And so, you know, and here I am thinking, well, it’s easy for Pelosi to say that. I mean, she knows her, she’s steeped in it, she grew up in it, right, with an understanding of it. Here I am, this young black girl that shouldn’t even be in these rooms. What is my power? And so, it took me on this journey to really, explore that question, but much of what I’ve learned about my own power is by virtue of watching, watching her.
Jen Rubin
Absolutely. She was the hardest worker I have ever seen in Congress, and she seemed to have endless energy and focus. Talk to us a little bit about that. Was that just something she came to office with that, with that kind of, steel in the spine and energy? Was that from raising five kids? Was that the model that her parents set for her? Where did that work ethic come from, do you think?
Ashley Etienne
So what she would say is really a couple of factors. It’s one, having 5 children in 6 years, right? That’ll teach you a lot of, lessons about momentum and stamina and all of those different things. And then the other, she always attributed to being Italian. She’s like, it’s my Italian heritage, you know? And the third, I think she would always say, is dark chocolate. The dark chocolate gives her energy. And so, and that is so true. There were so many meetings I remember being in with her, and if we saw that she started to, like, you know, the energy level goes down, gets a little hangry, we’d bring in a chocolate ice cream bar, and all of a sudden, she’s back at it again.
Absolutely right. I mean, she was the hardest-working person that I’ve known in the business. I mean, she would… I would be with her briefing her 7 o’clock in the morning as she’s getting her hair blown out, you know, the top news of the day, and then that wasn’t enough for her. She’d call another staffer to brief her even more on the news. So she just had really this, to your point, this boundless energy, but more than anything else, she never wasted a minute.
I mean, she despised, you know, downtime, as she would say. I mean, I remember once, I mean, just to punctuate the point, you know, we were waiting on an elevator, and she just decided to take the steps, and her, you know, 4-inch pumps runs all the way up, but two flights of steps, because she had no patience to wait for the elevator. And I think that’s how she’s always, you know, that’s how she led, and that’s why she’s the most prolific legislator of our time.
You know, she didn’t want to waste any time. She felt like, listen, it’s an honor every day that we get to, you know, that we get to represent our nation, and we should take advantage of every moment to better that nation. And so that was always her mission. So, you know, she was hardworking, so we had to be extra hardworking. That’s why I said if she called me now, I’d be overwhelmed with anxiety thinking about what I don’t know.
But she was always a couple steps ahead of everybody, her staff, the body as an institution, the party as an institution. You know, Obama’s getting a lot of credit for this redistricting effort, but I remember when she brought Holder and Obama together almost 10 years ago, because she knew this was coming around the corner, or when we did the Women’s Economic Agenda in 2014, because she knew the following year there was going to be a year of the women, you know? And we just had it two cycles ago. So, she’s always five steps ahead of everyone, and I think it’s that bound this energy that enables it.
Jen Rubin
Absolutely. Now, you came back to her a second time. When was that, and what was your specific ask of her when you did return?
Ashley Etienne
Yeah, I was in the Obama White House and I remember meeting with Valerie Jarrett after Trump had won, and she’s like, what are you gonna do? And I said, I don’t know, I just feel a pull to stay. And she’s like, well, maybe you should go out west, make money for a family, you got your young… you got a young family. And I said, well, there’s something pulling me in. All of a sudden, I started getting calls from Pelosi, Pelosi’s team, other members of Congress, you know, and at the time, she was quoting every founding father, you know, the times have found us, the times have found us.
And and they got ahold of me, and they were like, now is the time. Everything we’ve instilled in you, now is the time to use it for the… in the interest of the country. You know, everything is on the line. And so I… I was, you know, engaging with her and her team, and I said, you know, listen, I’ll take the job under two conditions. One, you give me the top job, so that I, you know, I could be the first woman and first woman of color to run communications for a speaker. And, second was that I wanted to be in charge of running the opposition to Donald Trump. And she’s like, you got it, it’s yours. So, you know, let’s do it. And, and that was sort of my second journey with her. I mean, people always, you know, those who know her well are shocked that I came back, but it’s, for me, it was iron sharpens iron. If I wanted to be the best, I had to work for the best. You know, if I wanted… you know, if I wanted to be, you know, you know, the baddest communicator, you know, in the business, then I had to put myself in the center of the action. And that’s where it was, you know, and, you know, it worked out. We won the speakership back, we won 40 seats, you know, it was historic.
The whole time was historic. I led the impeachment war room of Donald Trump. We did 23 investigations into the administration that was incredibly successful. So, six cabinet secretaries stepped down in scandal. So, it was a really incredible time for me, a really big growth opportunity, but I will say this, you know, I’m gonna write a letter to the speaker, and in it, I’m just gonna thank her really for the opportunity to really, trust me with that level of responsibility. I mean, I don’t know any other initiative bigger than impeaching a president. You know, especially at that time, especially that, this particular president. And so anyway, so I owe her a lot for trusting me with such a great, you know, big responsibility.
Jen Rubin
Absolutely. She was extremely strategic on impeachment. There were people who were pushing her much earlier to go forward, and she held off until the time was right. She also then delayed in sending the impeachment articles.
Ashley Etienne
That was so strategic, that was so strategic.
Jen Rubin
Tell us a little bit about how she saw impeachment. She can count votes better than any individual, so she understood that this was, you know, likely he was not going to get removed from office, but she understood the gravity of the moment, the reason why we are doing this. Talk to us a little bit about how she viewed that first impeachment, and her decision on timing and when to pull the trigger.
Ashley Etienne
No, you’re absolutely right. There were a lot of people that were, pushing her to move sooner and faster, and providing every explanation, within the Constitution and beyond on why she should have been. Norm can go into this in greater detail.
Jen Rubin
Yes, he has the stars, yes.
Ashley Etienne
He was one of those people. But, you know, her position has always been, and even when people were calling for the impeachment of Bush, around the Iraq war, is that, you know, there’s nothing more devastating to the nation than to impeach a president. And if we’re going to go down that path, we have to ensure that it is grounded in principle, that it is founded in, in strengthening our Constitution, because it can be so devastating to the nation. And so, from her perspective, she’s like, you know, we’re not gonna do this frivolously. We have to do this in a way that, stands the test of time, and that is clear violations of his oath of office in the Constitution.
And so we held off until the call, we uncovered the call with the Ukrainian president. And, and I remember those moments, you know, immediately after. And, there were a lot… there was a lot of whispering going on. You know, you don’t… you could work for Pelosi, but you don’t know until you know, right? And she’ll let you know when you need to know, and so there was a lot of whispering going, and so I knew something was happening, and then it was revealed that this call had happened. And I remember her saying, okay, now is the time, we’re gonna move forward, because the president has left me no other choice.
And that was the key phrase. He’s left me no other choice. He’s now demonstrated his lack of respect for the office, the oath that he takes, and the Constitution. So we had no other choice. And so we moved forward, but there were a couple things as running communications for the operation she wanted me to be sure of. To your point about how she thinks in five dimensions. She’s, you know, it’s always five-dimensional chess with Pelosi. She understands all the stakeholders and all the roles that they play. The first audience for her internally was those national security, our sort of crew of national security, members of Congress. So, the Spanberger, the, you know, Mickey Sheryl.
Jen Rubin
The five badasses that themselves.
Ashley Etienne
Exactly, Elissa Slotkin, right? Like, those members… and so her point to me was, these are the members that you need to stay closest to when you think about developing the messaging and the strategy. Then second to that was our vulnerable members, but first, she understood that they were the most important audience because they could move the rest of the caucus, and then they eventually moved the rest of the nation. When they came out, and they wrote that op-ed saying we have to move forward in short, you know, there was no other, sort of the floodgates opened, I should say. So that’s just how, strategic, to your point, how strategic the speaker was, even around impeachment. But we had created, and Norm, again, Norm knows this very well, an entire inside-outside game around impeachment, where we had constitutional scholars, you know, civil rights groups, groups on the ground we were meeting with on a weekly basis, you know, and they were part of the overall strategy. We were telling them, you go left, we’re gonna go right. And so the whole thing was coordinated inside-outside strategy. It was really the first time that that’s ever been done in Congress before. Absolutely. And it’s how we made history. It was the first time ever that are Republicans voted for impeachment against his own president, you know 60% of the country walked away believing that he had violated his oath of office, so it was an incredibly successful endeavor, but primarily because of how strategic Pelosi is. And because she waited for the right moment.
Jen Rubin
Absolutely. Now, there are many iconic moments with Donald Trump that we remember. We remember the coat and the glasses. We remember her standing up in the cabinet room lecturing him.
Ashley Etienne
Yes.
Jen Rubin
Remember her ripping up the, State of the Union speech. She will say she never forethought any of those, that they were spontaneous. I’m not sure I believe that or not, but… It’s true.
There you go. There was something, and there’s lots of things, obviously, about Donald Trump, but there was something that he crossed a line. He was the sort of president she could not abide by. She had her differences with President Bush. She used to call him the worst president, you know, in history. That was before Donald Trump. But there was something about Donald Trump Was it his lack of patriotism, his lack of respect? What was it that, finally, that you could just see, she was not gonna tolerate this man?
Ashley Etienne
Yeah, I think it was definitely his lack of respect for the office, because at her core, Nancy is an institutionalist. She believes in those documents and everything they represent. She’s into… she believes in protocol, she believes in order. I mean, all of those things, she believes in the body of Congress itself. I mean, all of that stuff, she doesn’t just believe in it. I mean, I think she’s just fascinated by it on some level, and is in awe of it. I mean, that’s, you know, she has so much reverence for these institutions. And so, when it came to Donald Trump, he didn’t. I mean, he’s on the very opposite end of the spectrum.
As she was, and so we knew early on, she knew early on, this is gonna be a problem for us. And, and I remember day one when I came back from the White House, and she said, we’re gonna have a meeting. First day, my first day back, first meeting, I want you to come to the meeting with the talking points, or how we’re gonna define Donald Trump. And one of, you know, and all of it’s centered around The fact that he only cared about himself.
It wasn’t the Constitution, it wasn’t Congress, it wasn’t the people, it wasn’t, you know, it wasn’t the body itself, it wasn’t the oath he took, that everything centered around Donald Trump. And I think that’s what she found most offensive, because to your point, even if she disagreed with it, and they still were able to pass bills, even though she thought, you know, he was the worst president ever. They still passed the biggest climate bill in our nation’s history. Like, she still was able to work with him, but that’s where I think she felt like he went too far. But we always anticipated that he would. I mean, we were planning two years out that there would be a January 6th, an attack now. You know, she was, again, always looking around the corner, always understood the power that he had with the nuclear codes, the, you know, the arsenal that, you know, and that he had… that combined with the ego meant, you know, we needed to be prepared for anything. And so, and so anyway, so I think it’s the lack of respect and reverence he has for the country and its founding principles and documents.
Jen Rubin
There is an insight that we saw into Nancy Pelosi, thanks to the coincidence that her daughter was there filming her on January 6th. She was utterly calm. People could have literally been losing their hair, you know, hair on fire. This was arguably the biggest crisis that Congress had ever been through. And yet, she was perfectly calm, very aware of her responsibility to protect her members and her staff What struck you about how she reacted in the moment, and then how she dealt with her staff in the aftermath, who had really been personally, physically, mentally traumatized by the event?
Ashley Etienne
And their lives were at threat. They were under threat. I mean, obviously. Yeah, I mean, I was… when I saw the film. I was not surprised, because that’s the Nancy Pelosi I know. She’s you know, is all… I mean, although that was, you know, an unprecedented set of circumstances, she always has her head on, she’s always cool, she, but… and it’s partly because she’s always anticipating. You know, she’s always anticipating, and so, as I said, we were anticipating almost 2 years earlier that something would happen, not knowing exactly what that was. So, and then what also struck… what struck me more than anything else is how everyone else reacted around her. You know, it’s, you know, even Republicans, you know, who found themselves in her bosom, you know, for lack of a better way of describing it, to her for the answer and for guidance, but I think that that speaks volumes about how people saw Nancy in that role, in her, no matter if she was the leader or the speaker, they always saw her like that. Now, they wouldn’t say that nationally, publicly they wouldn’t say… Republicans wouldn’t say that publicly, but that’s always how they felt about her, that she was always, again, in control, in the power position, fully aware of her surroundings and her responsibility and all, but more than anything else, taking control and charge in any set of crises.
So, I wasn’t surprised when I saw that, but what did surprise me, I will tell you this, and I’ve not said this much, but because I worked with her twice, I saw her evolution. I saw her become a different type of a leader under Donald Trump than she was in any other point when I’ve you know, engage with her or work for her. It was almost as though, like, you know, the superhero meeting the most perfect villain at the most perfect time, you know, in their life or their career.
And, and she really hit a whole other set of gears that I had never seen before.
Jen Rubin
20:25
Yes.
Ashley Etienne
I think she just had a willingness, a determination. A whole other sense of purpose and clarity about what that was, and so that’s what I saw in that… in those moments, in those clips, but that’s what I saw for four years working for her.
Jen Rubin
Well, you, I am sure, have had a lifetime of memories from. She’s not gone yet, she has another year to go. And of course, she leaves on a high note, having ushered in Prop 50, which is one more jiu-jitsu move on Donald Trump, so in true Nancy Pelosi style. We will have you back many times to continue to. Because you have so many, and I want to thank you for your service, and particularly during their impeachment. That’s when we got to know each other best, and you were just…
Ashley Etienne
Can I just say one more story that I love?
Jen Rubin
Absolutely!
Ashley Etienne
To punctuate the point about her being a badass, I remember when we were in the throes, she’s on the phone with Donald Trump, and she might hate me for saying this story, but I remember her saying, listen, we’ve got two options. We can either work together and do what’s in the best interest of the country or you can choose your weapon. But I’m ready either way. And so, it’s like, hearing that, I was like, oh my god, this woman is, like, incredible! You know, she’s so…
President of the United States, saying, choose your weapon, I’m ready, I’m prepared, either way you want to do this. And so, anyway, that to me, that story always punctuates, like, how much of a badass, how fearless and steely she is, and how convicted she is about her principles and the principles of this country, so…
Jen Rubin
Absolutely. Well, again, thank you, Ashley, for having served her so well, for having served the country.
Ashley Etienne
Thank you.
Jen Rubin
And we will look forward to having you back to share more of your life with Nancy. She is, for many of us, just an iconic figure, a heroic figure, a role model in so many different ways. So, thanks so much. It was great talking to you.
Ashley Etienne
Thanks for having me. My favorite subject.
