The ninth hearing of the House Jan. 6 committee was a bit tedious as it covered a great deal of old ground to establish former President Donald Trump’s culpability for the 2021 insurrection. But there were about seven minutes that were absolutely riveting: never-before-seen video footage of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi reacting in real time to the attack on the U.S. Capitol. The attack, which occurred as a joint session of Congress had gathered to certify Joe Biden’s victory over Trump in the 2020 election, had caused security officials to escort members of Congress to undisclosed locations.
The video, which was captured by Nancy Pelosi’s daughter Alexandra Pelosi, a documentary filmmaker, shows the speaker scrambling to figure out what’s unfolding at the Capitol as rioters are breaching it, and then huddling with and calling top government officials to try to help bring the chaos under control.
Take 7 minutes to watch House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and others respond to the Capitol insurrection in previously unseen footage. pic.twitter.com/qFDdLSuMmM
— The Recount (@therecount) October 13, 2022
The video footage is surreal. It is astonishing to get a firsthand and relatively raw look at how Pelosi and top lawmakers, including then-Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, conduct themselves while dealing with an unprecedented crisis in modern American politics. Like so much of the American public that day, the veteran lawmakers seem to alternate between incredulity, frustration and fear. And like we were then, they are, minute by minute, piecing together the serious and potentially dire consequences of what is happening.
Pelosi’s maneuvering reveals a principled determination to get back to the disrupted joint session of Congress as quickly as possible.
But the value of the footage goes beyond behind-the-scenes palace intrigue. In it, we have an opportunity to bear witness to how one goes about protecting democracy. It involved more than just making sure lawmakers were secure. Pelosi’s maneuvering reveals a principled determination to get back to the disrupted joint session of Congress as quickly as possible — so as to maintain the image of the U.S. government as functional, resilient and worthy of trust. It underscores an intuitive grasp of how fragile the whole enterprise of democracy really is.
“We have got to get — finish the proceedings or else they will have a complete victory,” Pelosi says on the phone as she’s apparently being walked by aides to safety, referring to the process for certifying Biden’s Electoral College victory.
In another clip she pleads to colleagues and aides with her in the secure location: “There has to be some way we can maintain the sense that people have that there is some security or some confidence that government can function, and that you can elect the president of the United States.” Pelosi and Schumer are shown talking to various security officials, and seem eager to find anything at all that could work to secure the Capitol. While on the phone with the governor of Virginia, Pelosi ponders the possibility of his sending his state’s National Guard into the district. But while Pelosi is emphasizing the importance of making sure the facilities are safe for everyone, it’s clear she is as concerned about the safety of democracy. Pelosi’s instincts were right. Even before it was clear what had happened with the riot and how organized it was, she knew that every moment that passed could irrevocably damage the government’s reputation as worthy of the people’s trust. She knew that allowing the rioters to control the building for too long would inspire confidence in authoritarians, while demoralizing small-d democrats. I’m certainly not always a fan of Pelosi’s political positions, but I appreciated her instantaneous recognition of the fragility of our democracy. On a day when people were shell-shocked and at times struggling to believe what was unfolding before their eyes, Pelosi appeared to recognize the full scope of what was at stake.
Zeeshan Aleem is a writer and editor for MS NOW. Previously, he worked at Vox, HuffPost and Politico, and he has also been published in, among other places, The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Nation, and The Intercept. You can sign up for his free politics newsletter by clicking the link at the top of this bio. 
