Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Thursday criticized President Biden for not withdrawing from the race sooner in a New York Times post-election investigation.
pelosi said “If the president had pulled out sooner, there might have been other candidates in the race,” host Lulu Garcia-Navarro said on the Times podcast “The Interview.”
As the former chairman said, “There was an expectation that if the president left office, the primary election would be held in public.'' Pelosi was instrumental in ousting Biden after his infamous debate performance.
Instead, Biden endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris within an hour of announcing his resignation on July 21. Less than 36 hours later, she announced that she was putting her nomination on hold after receiving assurances of support from a majority of delegates to the Democratic National Committee.
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“And like I said, Kamala could have done that and I think she would have done just fine.” [a primary] And we will continue to grow even stronger. But we don't know that. That didn't happen. “We're living with what happened, and the president's immediate endorsement of Kamala Harris made it nearly impossible at the time to hold a primary,” Pelosi told the Times. It became,” he said. If we had done it sooner, things would have been different. ”
Fox News Digital has reached out to the Biden and Harris campaigns for comment.
Pelosi has repeatedly claimed that although there was an open process after Harris secured the nomination, no one else stepped in to seize the opportunity.
“Many of us who were concerned about the election wanted an open process. This was an open process, and anyone could participate,” Pelosi said in her speech. Wall Street Journal interview In August.
”[Harris] She had the president's support and was politically shrewd enough to use it to shut it down — not shut it down, but win the nomination. But anyone else could have joined,” Pelosi continued.
She repeated those comments on “The View” in September, adding, “I was one of the early supporters of every leader, right? Within 24 hours.”
'Anyone could have participated' Pelosi claims Harris won the Democratic nomination through an 'open process'
Former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and President Biden. (Getty Images)
Pressured again that month, Pelosi expressed satisfaction that it happened so quickly.
“No, we haven't changed our mind. We're going to open up the primaries and [Kamala Harris] I won. No one else was in the race,” Pelosi said, adding, “Yes, I'm sure there were some people who jumped in. There were some people who were getting ready, but she just left. There wasn't that much time. So it was actually a blessing.” In a sense, it saved us time between then and the election. ”
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Pelosi's “The Interview” podcast will be released Saturday.
