Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has openly expressed doubts about whether President Biden wrote the letter he sent to Democrats last month asserting his “firm commitment” to remain in the race.
Biden, 81, wrote the letter to Democratic lawmakers seeking to dispel speculation that he might withdraw from the race following widespread concerns about his mental acuity following his performance in a June 27 debate with Republican rival Donald Trump. Two weeks later, Biden withdrew.
“I only took the letter as a letter.” Pelosi told The New York Times.” Columnist Ezra Klein said in an interview last week, “So, some people are unhappy with this letter.
“Let me put it this way. Some people have said that some people were unhappy with the letter. Let me speak from someone else’s mouth. It didn’t sound like Joe Biden to me. It really didn’t,” she said.
Two days after Biden sent the letter, Rep. Pelosi (D-Calif.), 84, made a high-profile appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” rumored to be one of the president’s favorite political shows.
“It’s up to the president to decide whether he wants to run,” she said on the show, adding that Biden had just stressed through his letter that he was still campaigning, but “time is running out and we all urge the president to make the decision to run.”
When asked about the discrepancy between her own comments and Biden’s letter, Pelosi said at the time, “Whatever he decides, we’ll abide by that.”
Some observers have speculated that Pelosi’s comments on the show were intended to send some kind of message to the president to cave in. Other commentators, such as New Yorker editor David Remnick, have suggested that the comments gave Democrats “space” to rebel against Biden.
Pelosi She claimed she was just on the show. To promote Belarusian opposition politician Sviatlana Tikhanovskaya.
Pelosi also repeated the worn-out defense that she was simply trying to win the presidential election, telling The New Yorker: ” [Biden’s] Political activities.
“I wanted to see a winnable race because I was determined to stay in Congress to defeat somebody because I thought he was a danger to our country,” Pelosi said, referring to former President Donald Trump.
Beyond Pelosi’s public statements, several of her key allies, including Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), have joined the insurrection against Biden’s reelection.
At one point, Pelosi grilled Biden about polling data that showed he could not win the presidential election, and when Biden disputed it, she had longtime adviser Mike Donilon call him. CNN reported:.
“Nancy made it clear that they could do this the easy way or the hard way,” said a Democrat with knowledge of the private conversations. He told Politico“She gave them three easy weeks. The hard road was about to begin.”
Anita Dunn, a longtime former Biden adviser who is now out of the White House, appeared to take a subtle shot at Pelosi in a recent interview.
“The challenge that we face is to win this election, to keep Donald Trump from being president again, and to win the House of Representatives. If some of our leaders had done a little better job in 2022, we might have been in control today, but we haven’t.” she said on Politico’s “Playbook Deep Dive” podcast..
“That’s the challenge we have to address,” Dunn said. “It’s a critical challenge because, as the president said, this country is at a turning point.”
Biden himself Rumored to be “furious” Pelosi, whom he mentioned by name in an interview that just aired on “CBS News Sunday Morning.”
“Many of my Democratic colleagues in the House and Senate thought I would hurt them electorally,” he explained in the interview.
“And I was worried that if I continued to campaign, I would be interviewed on the subject of why Nancy Pelosi said this. [something] … And I thought that would be a real distraction.”
Pelosi I have taken a firm stance She said that during the insurrection against Biden, she “didn’t call anybody” but rather people called her.
“People have been calling me and telling me there are challenges out there, so unless there’s a change in the leadership of the campaign, I don’t know what’s going to happen next,” she acknowledged to The New Yorker.
Pelosi said she and Biden had not spoken at least since Biden announced he was dropping out of the race on July 21 until early last week. It’s unclear whether they have spoken since then.
Meanwhile, House Speaker Pelosi has appeared to seek to repair her relationship with Trump, publicly praising him as an “influential” president and claiming he deserves to be buried on Mount Rushmore.
“I hope so,” she told the magazine when asked if their decades-long relationship would last. “I pray so. I cry so much.”
