Pelosi gives brutal explanation for knifing Biden and admits they're still not speaking
Nancy Pelosi (pictured) has admitted she hasn't spoken to Joe Biden since she forced him to drop out of the 2024 presidential election
Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden have not spoken since she forced him to drop out of the presidential election, the still-powerful former House speaker has admitted.
Pelosi was central to the effort by Democrats to get Biden to bow out of the race in July after a disastrous and concerning performance in his first and only presidential debate against Donald Trump of the 2024 election cycle.
On a Guardian podcast Tuesday, the California Democrat confirmed the once-close allies had not spoken since Biden was forced to make the stunning move. She said: 'Not since then, no. But I'm prayerful about it.'
Pelosi maintained that while she still considered the president a friend and political ally, she knew that she had to do something to cut his time in the Oval Office short.
The desperate, late-in-the race move came amid continuing concern about Biden's mental acuity and ability to lead, but was propelled by Democrats' concerns over whether he could beat Donald Trump in November.
Nancy Pelosi was central to the effort by Democrats to get Joe Biden to bow out of the race in July
And, indeed, Pelosi also admitted it was the politics of beating Trump that pushed the decision to end Biden's campaign forward.
'Elections are decisions. 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,' she told the Guardian.
'So when you make a decision, you have to make every decision in favor of winning... and the most important decision of all is the candidate.'
She added: 'I have the greatest respect for him. I think he's one of the great consequential presidents of our country.
'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.'
The long-time Democrat leader, in an interview with the New York Times, stated that she intervened after a July 8 letter purportedly from Biden to Congress in which he re-affirmed his commitment to remaining in the election contest.
'I didn't accept the letter as anything but a letter,' she said. 'It didn't sound like Joe Biden to me. It really didn't.'
One of Kamala Harris's (pictured) top campaign advisors called publicly available polling 'horses***' just as her race with Donald Trump tightens
Pelosi was a key leader in getting Joe Biden (pictured) to drop out of the race in July
In the letter, Biden stated that he was 'firmly committed' to remaining in the race against Donald Trump as he sought to head-off calls to step aside following his disastrous debate performance and increasingly dismal polling.
The following month, she said when asked by CNN whether there was any bad blood between her and Biden, she said that 'sometimes you have to take a punch for the children.'
She then doubled down, saying Biden 'made the decision for the country' and adding that 'I have to do what I have to do'. She then pointed to the 'exuberance' and 'excitement' that has come in wake of Vice President Kamala Harris's candidacy.
Since then, she has been keen to get Kamala Harris into the Oval Office in November.
'She's running on her strength, her knowledge of policy and strategy and presentation and the rest. And I think that's a different race than Hillary Clinton ran', she told the Guardian in the same podcast.
Pelosi added: 'I always thought America was more ready for a woman president than a woman speaker of the House. The Congress of the United States is not a glass ceiling there. It's a marble ceiling. And it was very hard to rise up there.
'But the public, I think, is better disposed. In Congress, they would say to me: 'Understand this, there's been a pecking order here for a long time of men who've been waiting for openings to happen and take their turn.' And I said: 'That's interesting. We've been waiting over 200 years.''
The candidate are ramping up their campaigns, as November inches closer.
One of Harris's top campaign advisors called publicly available polling 'horses***' just as her race with Donald Trump tightens.
David Plouffe, a senior advisor to the Harris-Walz campaign and a former Barack Obama advisor, was adamant while speaking on the 'Pod Save America' podcast that the presidential race is closer than some surveys show.
'I can't speak to the public polls. I spend very little time looking at them... most of them are horses***,' the strategist admitted.
'Some of them may be close but generally, I'd say any poll that shows Kamala Harris up four to five points in one of these seven states, ignore it,' he said referencing the critical battleground states.
'Any point that shows Donald Trump up like that - ignore it.'
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