FILM WAS MADE BY DAUGHTER OF PELOSI
violence who suffered severe wounds in an assassination attempt — was to do the Second Amendment on the right to bear arms.
Concerned that some people would view that as politicizing the readings, Pelosi changed it up.
“We decided instead to let the kids do it because they are the future, and they are the ones who are going to have to grow up and uphold or amend these amendments,” she says.
When she began the documentary, Pelosi sent out a blanket invitation to members of the Senate to take part, offering them a choice of what passages to read.
It turns out, though, that no one wanted to read the politically sensitive impeachment clause. Pelosi had to finally ask former Vice President Dick Cheney to do it after planning for him to read something else.
Pelosi, daughter of House Democratic Minority leader Nancy Pelosi, calls it “pretty cool” for her as a filmmaker to get to talk to such political figures.
She says former Secretary of State Gen. Colin Powell spoke to her for half an hour about what the passage he read from the Constitution meant.
“I got to sit in Dick Cheney’s kitchen and have coffee with him and talk about the Constitution,” she says. “That’s the opportunity of a lifetime.”
Not surprisingly, all the vice presidents, she says, “complained about how little power the vice president is given in the Constitution.
Pelosi also got to learn things about those who took part in the documentary, such as that Sen. Ted Cruz knows the Constitution by heart.
“He was in a debate club in high school where they traveled around Texas and recited the Constitution from beginning to end,” she says.
Besides the impeachment clause, there were a few other politically sensitive parts of the Constitution, such as the threefifths compromise, which was a way to count slaves for representation.
Slavery is never mentioned in the Constitution — only “free persons” and “all other people” — although it clearly figured into its writing. Reps. John Lewis and Maxine Waters, both African-americans, wanted to read the clause, so Pelosi had them share it.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren got her wish to read the emoluments clause, which prevents U.S. officeholders accepting “any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state.”
In the documentary, the senator, who has been pressing President Trump to be transparent in his financial dealings with foreign countries, reads the passage forcefully and ends with a small smile.
As for President Trump, Pelosi says she was surprised by how much time he gave her and her HBO crew.
“He wanted to get it right,” she says. “He didn’t rush.”
The president reads the beginning of Article II about the power of the executive branch.
People have been arguing about how to interpret the Constitution since before the ink on it dried, but Pelosi says if you don’t read it — or at least watch her documentary — you can’t properly discuss it.
The filmmaker, who has done 11 documentaries for HBO, says she’s not expecting “The Words That Built America” to be as popular as “Game of Thrones,” but hopes people will take the time to watch.
Interestingly, she doesn’t think President Trump knew who she was when she was at the White House to film him. And why does she think that?
“Thedayiwastherewasthe day that my mother first called for (U.S. Attorney General) Jeff Sessions to resign, and Vice President (Mike) Pence came in to talk to him about it,” Pelosi remembers. “President Trump was very nice and respectful, but I don’t think he caught my last name.”