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Pelosi is said to have played a major role in pushing Biden to withdraw. She continues to downplay it.
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But she makes no secret of her skepticism about the shortcomings of his campaign.
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“I’ve never been that impressed with his political activities,” she said.
In recent days, Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi has become more outspoken about her thoughts on President Joe Biden’s decision to leave office.
That means she offers a rather blunt assessment of his political activities, despite her decades-long friendship with the president himself.
“I’ve never been so impressed with his political operation,” she told The New Yorker. “They won the White House. Bravo. But my concern was: this is not happening, and we have to make a decision to make it happen. The president has to make the decision to make it happen.”
Pelosi has been widely reported to have played a key role in Biden’s fateful decision to withdraw from the 2024 race. The New York Times reported that she told him directly that he had little chance of winning after his disastrous debate performance, and that Biden himself viewed Pelosi as a “chief instigator” of the party effort to convince him to step aside.
But Pelosi has played down all that, refusing to discuss her own private conversations with Biden, while insisting she has not coordinated any broad efforts.
What is clear is that Pelosi made at least one fateful move: declaring in an interview with “Morning Joe” that Biden had to make a decision about continuing his campaign, even after he had already said he would stay in the race. That interview reopened a conversation within the party that had seemed to have died down just a day earlier.
“That was not my intention,” Pelosi told The New Yorker. “If I had, I probably would have put on a different suit or something, because I didn’t look very professional.”
Pelosi also said she hopes her relationship with Biden, which has lasted more than 40 years since she was chair of the California Democratic Party, can remain intact after Biden’s decision.
“I hope so,” Pelosi said. “I pray so. I cry so.”
Read the original article on Business Insider
