Former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has argued that “it would have been different” if Joe Biden had agreed to stand down earlier than he eventually did.
Biden repeatedly refused to exit the presidential race despite glaring evidence that he is suffering from dementia and other age-related issues.
However, his campaign fell apart after a disastrous television debate with Donald Trump in which he was barely coherent.
This triggered panic among Democratic leaders, with Pelosi and Barack Obama eventually demanding that he step aside. Biden eventually heeded this request in mid-July and endorsed Kamala Harris.
In an interview with The New York Times podcast, Pelosi indicated that allowing Biden to remain in the race proved to be a fatal error.
“Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” she explained. “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. And 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.”
Pelosi was also asked to weigh in on comments by Senator Bernie Sanders that the Democratic Party had lost its key working-class constituencies due to its obsession with identity politics.
“Bernie Sanders has not won,” Pelosi explained. “With all due respect, and I have a great deal of respect for him, for what he stands for, but I don’t respect him saying that the Democratic Party has abandoned the working-class families.”
“Guns, God and gays — that’s the way they say it,” she continued. “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.”
Like all of her Democratic colleagues, Pelosi has clearly been left devastated by Trump’s landslide victory.
Before Kamala Harris’s concession speech on Wednesday, Pelosi was seen arguing with former Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Donna Brazile.
Democrats in disarray:
Nancy Pelosi is arguing with Donna Brazile at the Kamala Harris defeat speech. pic.twitter.com/y3QQBoQCAT
— Steve Cortes (@CortesSteve) November 6, 2024
Meanwhile, photos of her circling across social media showed the face of a woman who had been absolutely shattered by the result.
A photo for the ages. pic.twitter.com/GwNGgZqtx4
— Ben Kew (@ben_kew) November 7, 2024
