Nancy Pelosi has represented San Francisco for nearly four decades in Congress — a city she’s lived in and raised a family in for more than 50 years. But even though she’s got her heart in San Francisco, the roots of her family tree stretch back to the East Coast.

“I always like to brag about being from Baltimore, even though I’ve represented San Francisco for all these years,” she admits. “The national anthem was written there.”

Pelosi notes her favorite line of the song, written by Francis Scott Key is “proof through the night that our flag was still there.”

“We're in the night where we're proving that our flag is still there, a flag that we pledge to every day with liberty and justice for all,” remarked Pelosi as she discussed her brand new book, "The Art of Power" with Spectrum News.

Pelosi’s book, which she said is not a memoir (“That may be a book that I write next,” she quipped), is a look back “of decisions” that she — and sometimes others — have made during her decades-long career, from her first trip to China’s Tiananmen Square, to the fight for the Affordable Care Act, and the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

“It's a book of decisions about leadership and certain decisions that are made and about the values in which it is based, the courage of our members to vote for it, all the differences in Congress,” she said.

But readers might be surprised as to where the book begins: a moment when Pelosi said she felt absolutely powerless.

In October 2022, her husband, Paul, was attacked by an intruder in their San Francisco home. Pelosi gives a recounting in the book of how she learned of the horrifying attack on Paul, and how her children and grandchildren reacted to the news. Pelosi said it was the topic she was “getting the most questions” about.

Pelosi uses those most terrifying moments — the flight across the country hoping her husband would pull through his surgery, the feelings of unease in their own home as he recovers, the health concerns that linger as Paul continues his recovery — to consider the temperature of politics in America. 

“We have to get rid of that political violence they started with Hillary and Bill Clinton, the politics of personal destruction — maybe not physical violence, but nonetheless,” she explained. “When I came to Congress, it wasn't like that. Democrats, Republicans, you have a difference of opinion. You're proud of what you believe in, you welcome the debate, and you hope to negotiate a consensus. And then all of a sudden it turned into the ‘90s, when they went after the Clintons and all a different place. And then it has only gotten worse.”

Pelosi recalls her daughter, Alexandra, saying she never would have given her mother permission to run for political office if she had known what it would lead to.

Pelosi said she never contemplated resigning from Congress after the attack, though she did take a step back from leadership.

“I thought we could win, and my goal was to hand it over in victory. And we lost five seats in New York, and now we'll get them back, and Hakeem [Jeffries] will be speaker, and it’ll be wonderful,” said Pelosi. 

“It wasn’t a question whether I stayed in the Congress or not. I was always going to pass on the leadership. I felt very excited about that.”

Pelosi spoke with Spectrum News just more than over a week after the shooting at Trump’s rally in Butler, Pa., that injured three, including Trump and killed another. Pelosi said the attack “should never have happened.”

“We have to take ourselves to a place where this rhetoric is not so violent in terms of, frankly, the other side and the things that they say,” said Pelosi. “To this day, on the internet, I've continued to be a target. When my husband was assaulted – and [it’s] so sad because it's in our own home, making our home a crime scene because of the political philosophy of this guy who came there, but not only that, just his motivation to be harmful. And what did the Republicans do? Make jokes about it.”

“Why make jokes about somebody getting hit over the head with a hammer three times a centimeter away from death, and they thought that was funny?” she muses with disappointment. 

During her last term as Speaker, Pelosi appointed 7 Democrats and 2 Republicans — former Reps. Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney — to investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, then minority leader, pulled all of his nominees from consideration after Pelosi rejected two who voted against certifying the election. 

She had attempted to cajole her colleagues on both sides of the aisle to create an outside commission to study the attack, but Republicans, including Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, shut down. 

When asked if she blames McConnell for enabling Trump to be able to run for president as a result of his decision to vote against the former president’s impeachment, Pelosi admitted “yeah.”

“I don't know what he was afraid of, but his actions were not consistent with his words, and that's most unfortunate,” she admitted.

“I mean, we're friends, I've worked with him for a long time because we were both appropriators, but to see him fight against an outside commission to study Jan. 6 – I was with him that night, we were in the room asking for the asking for the National Guard to come, and he was saying they better get over here quick and all that,” she said, though McConnell “said it a little more colorfully than that.”

"And then to go down that route [against the commission]? Very strange. I doubt he wants, well, I don't know you have to ask him, but how could he possibly want Donald Trump to be president again, knowing how dangerous he is to our country."

Spectrum News has reached out to Leader McConnell’s office for comment.

Pelosi has long been vilified by Trump and his supporters, calling her “crazy Nancy.” But the antagonism from the right, she said, goes back well beyond the 45th president. It started when she became leader of her caucus. 

“I was so effective. I was an effective legislator getting the job done, I was an effective fundraiser, I was an effective political leader to win elections… to win the House again and again. And so they had to demonize me and the regular Republican Party was a part of that demonization,” she said. Pelosi admits she has a thick skin, but she often warns women running for office that their children will see their mother depicted in similar ways.

“This is not for the faint of heart. So when you decide to go into the public arena, know your ‘why.’”

Her “why,” she said, is fighting “for the children.” She wants to make sure children have access to food, to health care, to issues that impact families. It’s driven her for her entire career, from housewife to House Speaker, her guiding light in her darkest times as she’s said.

"I want women to know — especially women — to know that it is worth it."

Pelosi wields her power with an iron fist and a velvet glove. “Never let the friendship leave your voice. Treat everyone as a friend, but know who your friends are,” she cautions of the lessons she has learned and her advice to those following in her footsteps.

Pelosi writes in the book that she is “still amazed by how many people I meet who ask about only one topic: Donald Trump,” but it’s her concern about a second Trump presidency that reminded her of the national anthem — the uncertainty of the night, the violence, but the flag is still there — that has brought up this anecdote about the Star Spangled Banner during our conversation.

“We are in the night now. We have to win this election, because the threat to our democracy, to our flag, to our liberty and our justice, is great,” Pelosi warned. “The most important tool we have is the vote. And I would wish the other side would have some respect for the peaceful transfer of power, and hopefully they will, this time.”

Spectrum News' David Mendez contributed to this report.