California Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the silent operator who clutched the reigns of the House and steered it for nearly a decade, broke her silence on pushing President Joe Biden to suspend his re-election campaign in a new interview with New Yorker editor David Remnick published Thursday.
Pelosi told the New Yorker she had “never been that impressed with (Biden’s) political operation” but earlier in the day on that fateful June 27, Pelosi admitted she was the one assuaging fears about Biden’s competence.
“When I was with the members, they were, like, ‘Oh, how’s it going to be?’ ‘Trump will be so awful,’ I said. ‘Don’t worry about it. The Joe Biden of the State of the Union is going to show up. It’s going to be great,’” Pelosi said. “I just didn’t want him to be seen with that guy. And then that happened, and I think everybody was stunned. It was stunning.”
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Like the New York Times editorial board, David Axelrod, the talking heads on MSNBC, and virtually every other person in Democratic circles, Pelosi knew Biden couldn’t last after that performance.
For weeks, following Biden’s decision to drop out, a quiet stream of reporting has pinned Pelosi as the king, or rather, queenmaker, behind Biden’s decision.
President Joe Biden, then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY)
Jonathan Ernst/Reuters“Nancy made clear that they could do this the easy way or the hard way,” a Democrat close to the situation told Politico on July 21, adding, “She gave them three weeks of the easy way. It was about to be the hard way.”
Outwardly, Pelosi did not say much in the interim.
“It’s up to the president to decide if he is going to run. We’re all encouraging him to make that decision, because time is running short,” Pelosi told the MSNBC program, Morning Joe on July 10, being her only public remarks.
Now, nearly a month later, Pelosi told the New Yorker, “I didn’t plan to do that on [Morning Joe.] In fact, if I did, I probably would’ve worn a different suit or something, because I didn’t look too professional.”
She added, “My concern was: This ain’t happening, and we have to make a decision for this to happen. The President has to make the decision for that to happen.”
Pelosi insisted, as she had done before in an interview with CBS Sunday Morning on August 4, that she “never called one person” about Biden.
“I kept true to my word. Any conversation I had, it was just going to be with him. I never made one call,” she told New Yorker.
Pelosi said people were calling her saying there was a “challenge there.” She added, “So there had to be a change in the leadership of the campaign, or what would come next.”
Now that the dust has settled, Pelosi said she has not talked to Biden since his withdrawal on July 21. Pelosi said, “I lose sleep on it,” referring to her tattered relationship with Biden.
“I hope so,” she replied when asked whether her relationship with Biden would continue. “I pray so. I cry so.”
