Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is defending her role in the decision by former President Joe Biden to withdraw from the 2024 race, admitting that she has yet to speak with the former president or former First Lady Jill Biden.
Biden made history last July by dropping out of the race after mounting pressure from Democratic lawmakers following his disastrous debate performance against now-President Donald Trump.
Pelosi was widely seen as a key figure behind the Democratic effort to push Biden out of the race. Since then, reports suggest tensions between the Bidens and Pelosi have remained strained, Fox News noted.
MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell questioned Pelosi about Biden’s insistence—expressed even in the final days of his presidency—that he could have defeated Trump had he not been pressured to step aside.
“Well, all I know is that we won a seat in the house. We did not lose any seats,” Pelosi argued. “You know, people were like, ‘Oh, the Democrats lost!’ No, we did not. I think it would have been quite different with President Biden at the top of the ticket.”
Mitchell noted that Jill Biden expressed she was “disappointed” with Pelosi’s actions during an interview with the Washington Post. In late January, Jill told the Post that Pelosi’s actions had “been on my mind a lot lately,” noting, “We were friends for 50 years. It was disappointing.”
Mitchell asked Pelosi, “Is there any way to patch that up? Have you spoken to her?”
“Well, I certainly hope so,” Pelosi replied. “No, I haven’t [spoken to Jill Biden], but the fact is that we’re all on a mission for the American people, for the American people, for America’s working families.”
A new book reveals even more details about how far the former House Speaker went in attempting to keep then-Vice President Kamala Harris off the Democratic ticket.
Fox News host Jesse Watters referenced the new book, “Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle For the White House,” by co-authors Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes, in which the writers provided additional insight into Pelosi’s behind-the-scenes meddling.
Watters played a clip of Parnes, in which she described Pelosi’s reaction after watching Biden’s disastrous debate against then-former President Donald Trump: “She watches the debate, she’s unhappy and she thinks that she doesn’t want Democrats to rush into anything in that moment because she thinks if they rush him out then Kamala is going to be in and she does not think that Kamala Harris can win. She’s in a pickle in that moment.”
Watters then ran a clip of Allen, who said: “Her thinking was Biden had to get out and Harris was a disaster and what she was trying to do was get Biden out in time to the Democrats could choose someone other than Harris.”
“Kamala won’t be happy when she sees this, but nobody is more upset with Pelosi than Joe Biden,” Watters said. “According to the new book, ‘Fight,’ after the coup, ‘Biden was with his friends on Air Force One and started naming the people he would never forgive for their betrayal. The first name out of his mouth – Nancy Pelosi. Biden and Pelosi may never talk again.”
Watters added: “But Pelosi was right, Biden did not have what it takes and neither did Kamala. She spent three months and $2 billion crashing and burning and the whole time she thought she was winning.”
WATCH:
The co-authors also revealed that Pelosi secretly told Biden not to debate Trump at all.
In the days before Biden dropped out of the 2024 presidential race, there was a behind-the-scenes disagreement between his team and Democratic Party members, which also included Pelosi.
Biden’s poor, stumbling performance made other Democrats lose faith in him, which ultimately caused him to drop out of the race.
