Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has reportedly issued an ultimatum to President Joe Biden to withdraw from the presidential race “the easy way or the hard way.”
POLITICO report On Monday, a day after Biden announced he was stepping down as the Democratic nominee for 2024 president, the former House speaker and still top Democratic Party leader stood firm despite weeks of publicly insisting Biden would press ahead with his campaign despite the massive fallout from his disastrous performance in the June 27 debate.
“Nancy made it clear they could choose the easy way or the hard way,” a Democratic source familiar with the conversations told the outlet on condition of anonymity. “She gave them three weeks of the easy way. Now it was going to be the hard way.”
According to the outlet, “the hard way” means Pelosi will publicly discuss the efforts she has made privately to get Biden to drop out of the race.
This was reportedly accompanied by a threat to release internal Biden campaign polling conducted last week that showed Biden trailing in every battleground state and in jeopardy in other Democratic presidential hopefuls, including New Mexico and Virginia.
Those damning internal investigations were presented to the president at a key meeting on Saturday with two of Biden’s top advisers, Steve Ricchetti and Mike Donilon, and appeared to influence Biden’s decision on Sunday. POLITICO I got it:
In addition to reporting new concerns from lawmakers and an update on fundraising efforts that had slowed significantly, the campaign also posted its own polling, which was released again this week and showed Biden’s path to victory in November’s election was gone, five people familiar with the matter said. The people, like others interviewed for this story, spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations. In the exchange, Biden asked several questions.
When Biden woke up on Sunday, the only people in the residence were first lady Jill Biden and two other trusted aides, deputy chief of staff Annie Tommasini and assistant to the first lady Anthony Bernal. At 1:45 p.m., Biden informed a slightly larger group of aides that he had decided the night before not to seek reelection, read a letter, and thanked them for their work. A minute later, before the rest of the campaign and White House staff had been notified, he A historic letter from his election account On social media site X.
The reports of Pelosi and others’ pressure campaign against Biden come after Biden, with the help of the Democratic National Committee, fended off serious challengers in the primaries, won every Democratic nomination contest and secured 14 million votes in the primaries. About 4,600 delegates are currently expected to decide the Democratic nominee for the party’s convention in August.
Following his initial announcement, Biden also endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as his candidate to succeed him, and Harris has quickly solidified support among party officials and leaders and appears to be the front-runner to succeed him.
WATCH — Pelosi: It’s “legitimate” to ask if Biden debate was an episode or a condition
