Nancy Pelosi admits she still hasn't spoken to President Biden after pressuring him to drop out of the race
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi revealed in a new interview that she still has not spoken to President Biden after being part of the Democratic pressure campaign for him to drop out of the race.
"Not since then, no," she told The Guardian's Politics Weekly America podcast when asked if she's spoken to the president. "But I’m prayerful about it."
Pelosi denies being part of any pressure campaign against the president, but Biden has said that pressure from his colleagues led to his decision.
"I have the greatest respect for him. I think he’s one of the great consequential presidents of our country," Pelosi said in the interview posted Tuesday. "I think his legacy had to be protected. I didn’t see that happening in the course that it was on, the election was on. My call was just to: ‘Let’s get on a better course.’ He will make the decision as to what that is. And he made that decision. But I think he has some unease because we’ve been friends for decades."
PELOSI DEMURS ON IF ‘EVERYTHING IS OK’ BETWEEN HER AND BIDEN: ‘YOU’D HAVE TO ASK HIM'
The former House Speaker also admitted that some in the president's corner might not have forgiven her for the role she played, but argued that a Trump victory might have been worse.
"You decide to win. I decided a while ago that Donald Trump will never set foot in the White House again as President of the United States or in any other capacity … So when you make a decision, you have to make every decision in favor of winning, and that is mobilization, message, money, to have that to win the election, but the most important decision of all is the candidate and the campaign of the candidate," she added, according to the Guardian.
The Guardian pressed, "and you just felt he couldn't win?"
"No, I thought his, the campaign that they were on couldn't win, he might have won, but they had to change what was happening, and he decided that change would be his stepping aside," she said.
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Pelosi was one of several Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who reportedly called on Biden to step down following a disastrous debate performance in June.
After Biden told his Democratic colleagues he was going to remain in the race, Pelosi joined the hosts of MSNBC's "Morning Joe," one of the president's favorite news programs, and suggested it wasn't a final decision.
"It's up to the president to decide if he is going to run. We are all encouraging him to make that decision, because time is running short," Pelosi told MSNBC on July 10, when asked if she would be supporting his bid for re-election.
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The interview is viewed as a turning point in the movement to drop Biden, given Pelosi's stature in the party. Less than two weeks later, Biden was out of the race.