Biden's delay to exit elections cost Democrats the election: Former House Speaker Pelosi
Joe Biden’s delay in exiting the 2024 presidential election cost the election for the Democrats according to former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
“We live with what happened,” Pelosi said days after Donald Trump won the elections for his second term as the President of the US.
The statement was made by Pelosi in an interview with the New York Times for the ‘The Interview’ podcast.
“Had the president gotten out sooner,” Pelosi said, “there may have been other candidates in the race. The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary.”
“And as I say, Kamala may have, I think she would have done well in that and been stronger going forward. But we don’t know that. That didn’t happen. We live with what happened,” Pelosi added
Pelosi further went on to say “Because the president endorsed Kamala Harris immediately, that really made it almost impossible to have a primary at that time. If it had been much earlier, it would have been different.”
As Democrats argued, pointing fingers, over Harris's loss and the second Trump presidency, with many from Harris's camp calling him a "fascist," Pelosi's remarks hit hard.
The New York Times said that Pelosi “went to great lengths to defend the Biden administration’s legislative accomplishments, most of which took place during his first two years when she was the House speaker”.
The Republicans won the House in 2022. Pelosi, now 84, was re-elected this week for her 20th two-year term.
Biden, who was 78 when he was elected president in 2020, is now nearing 82. While he previously dismissed concerns about his ability to continue in office, those doubts resurfaced after a poorly received first debate against Donald Trump in June of this year.
On July 21, Biden announced he would step down as the Democratic nominee and quickly endorsed his Vice President, Harris, as the new nominee.
Pelosi was reportedly instrumental in convincing Biden to step down. In August, she told The New Yorker she had "never been that impressed with his political operation.
She added, "They won the White House - bravo. But my concern was: this isn’t working, and we need to make a change. The president has to make that decision for it to happen."
The New York Times reported that Pelosi pushed back against comments from Bernie Sanders, who claimed that Trump’s victory was due to Democrats "abandoning working-class people." Jaime Harrison, chair of the Democratic National Committee, called Sanders' remarks "straight-up BS."
"Bernie Sanders has not won," Pelosi said. "With all due respect, and I have a great deal of respect for him and what he stands for, but I don’t respect him saying that the Democratic Party has abandoned working-class families."
Pelosi argued that cultural issues, rather than economic ones, were key in driving American voters towards Trump.
“Guns, God, and gays - that’s the way they say it,” she explained. “Guns, that’s an issue. Gays, that’s an issue. And now they’re making the trans issue such an important issue in their priorities. And in certain communities, what they call God, what we call a woman’s right to choose” - referring to abortion and other reproductive rights.