It lasted surprisingly long, roughly 20 seconds. They gripped each other’s hands as they leaned in to whisper. The former Vice President and former Speaker of the House, before each was awarded the inaugural Yale Patriot Public Service Award, paused to embrace each other.
When Nancy Pelosi walked into the room, more than halfway through the event, a hush fell over the crowd and all turned to look. She worked her way through the front, shaking hands, sharing whispers and short side hugs with familiar faces; of which, it seemed, there were several in the crowd. But most surprising of all was when she finally found her seat—next to former Vice President Mike Pence. The two have sat side by side many times before, famously behind Trump during his 2020 State of the Union, when she ripped the President’s speech in half as Pence disparagingly watched.
The House Speaker Emerita—who is completing her final term after nearly four decades representing San Francisco—and the former vice president—who spent January 6, 2021, resisting his own president’s demand that he overturn a certified election—came together in Washington D.C. at the Yale Chief Executive Leadership Institute, hosted by Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, the Lester Crown Professor in Management Practice and Senior Associate Dean at Yale School of Management.
We watched it happen from the floor as Fortune‘s representatives at the closed-door gathering, whose off-the-record ground rules were lifted by everyone named in this article. Whatever else may divide them, the two stood shoulder-to-shoulder as the inaugural recipients of the Yale Patriot Public Service Award for Executive Leadership, built on the idea that they had put the country ahead of their party and themselves. It was “shocking, historic and emotional to all,” Sonnenfeld told Fortune of the unexpected embrace. Pence later posted about the event on X.com.
Two awards, one thesis
The award, inaugurated this year to mark the 250th anniversary of American independence, went to Pelosi for “Legislative Leadership” and to Pence for “Executive Leadership.” Sonnenfeld, who has run the semiannual CEO Caucus for decades, designed the awards explicitly to honor “Americans of both parties who have devoted their lives to public service and rendered it with integrity, civility and devotion to country above party.”
The presenter list was a bipartisan reunion in its own right. Republican former Transportation and Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, spoke movingly about how “Patriotism is not measured on the easy days. It is measured on the hard ones when doing your duty costs you something. ….On January 6, 2021, the Vice President was asked to set aside the Constitution. Under enormous pressure, in circumstances no one should ever face, he kept the oath he had sworn to protect.”
Former Democratic House Majority Leader Dick Gephardt spoke forcefully about how Pence “put country over party, and more importantly, country over self.” He told the room, “Mike Pence is a patriot. He has good character. He did the right thing. He stood for the Constitution, he stood for the laws of this country, and he saved this democracy.”
Carla Hills, a Republican who served as U.S. Trade Representative and HUD Secretary, offered a parallel case for Pelosi: “In these highly partisan days, Nancy Pelosi has really been a model for outstanding government leadership,” she said. “She takes principled positions. Policy over politics. And policy over her own needs for reelection.”
Former Federal Reserve Chair and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, unable to attend in person, sent a pre-recorded tribute praising Pelosi’s “remarkable ability to look at seemingly impossible political situations, figure out what can actually be done, and then somehow get it done,” adding that “all of that political skill is grounded in a very clear sense of purpose and a strong moral compass.”
Other attendees who lifted the off-record ground rules to express their support for the awards included former HHS Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell, Chief Executive Group CEO Marshall Cooper, USA Networks founder Kay Koplovitz and American Industrial Acquisition Chairman Leonard Levie.
Speaking of their behavior at the summit, Sonnenfeld told Fortune, “many were shocked, and all were moved by this historic embrace of long-standing political rivals who are titans of their respective political parties.” He said he hoped that this could provide a “much-needed pathway for business leaders to help pilot their businesses through the anxieties of the next few weeks and possibly next few months of a divided nation.”
A ‘vivid reminder’
The tributes to Pelosi and Pence were the emotional centerpiece of a caucus otherwise consumed by anxiety: over the ongoing war in Iran, Trump’s upcoming visit to China, and AI’s effect on jobs and markets. And yet Pence and Pelosi both offered several jokes, in keeping with Sonnenfeld’s tone as a free-wheeling master of ceremonies.
Fortune‘s Diane Brady wrote this morning that she “did not expect to return from the Yale CEO Caucus in Washington feeling more hopeful than when I arrived,” crediting the standing ovations for Pence and Pelosi as proof that “what unites them isn’t their politics but their commitment to the Constitution, public service, integrity and something bigger than themselves.”
Reaction from other attendees echoed that relief. Jay Timmons, president and CEO of the National Association of Manufacturers, said manufacturers are “wrestling with enormous uncertainty, much of which has been brought about by populism and extreme partisanship.” He called the joint tribute a “vivid reminder that our nation is at its best when our leaders work together to advance America’s highest ideals.”
Robert Hormats, who served as a senior State Department economic official across five administrations, was more emphatic, describing Pence and Pelosi as “HEROES WHO SAVED OUR DEMOCRACY THAT DAY. … A TRULY MEMORABLE DAY.”
[This report has been updated to add a comment from Elaine Chao.]