Nancy Pelosi suggested Biden did not write a letter indicating his willingness to continue running for president
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has suggested that Joe Biden didn’t write a letter last month that indicated his desire to stay in the presidential race.
In an interview with New York Times columnist Ezra Klein last week, Pelosi said that the letter, which was sent to Congressional Democrats to address concerns about the President’s cognitive decline in the wake of his disastrous debate performance against Donald Trump, “didn’t sound like Joe Biden to me.”
“I didn’t accept the letter as anything but a letter. I mean, there are some people who are unhappy with the letter,” the former Speaker said.
“Let me say it differently. Some said that some people were unhappy with the letter. I’ll put it in somebody else’s mouth. It didn’t sound like Joe Biden to me. It really didn’t.”
Pelosi’s initial response to the letter was taken as a clear message that Democrat top brass wanted Biden to go; although Pelosi disputes this. She appeared on MSNBC two days later and said, “It’s up to the president to decide if he is going to run,” despite the fact that Biden had just indicated his willingness to do so. “We’re all encouraging him to make that decision because time is running short.”
Insiders have suggested that Pelosi gave Biden an ultimatum in a phone call and a deadline of “three weeks of the easy way.”
According to journalist Seymour Hersch, Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries plotted with Barack Obama and Kamala Harris to use the threat of the 25th Amendment to get Biden to step away from the race.
“By Saturday, July 20, former President Barack Obama was deeply involved, and there was talk that he would place a call to Biden,” Hersch explained on Substack. He describes how a well-placed official told him that Pelosi, Schumer and Jeffries conspired with Obama to invoke the 25th Amendment, leading to a phone call with Biden in which the former president said, “Here’s the deal. We have Kamala’s approval to invoke the 25th Amendment.”
Pelosi has remained adamant that she “never called one person,” but she came very close to admitting her central role in removing Biden in an interview with The New Yorker’s David Remnick last week.
“I love him [Biden] so much. I think he’s been really a fantastic President of the United States,” Pelosi said.
“So I really wanted him to make a decision of a better campaign, because they were not facing the fact of what was happening. Just a little background. I’ve never been that impressed with his political operation… I’m not. I just haven’t been. I mean, it just happened. They won the White House. Bravo.
“So my concern was, this ain’t happening, and we have to make a decision for this to happen, and the President has to make the decision for that to happen.”
The President himself gave a clear indication in an interview on Sunday, his first since being deposed, that he holds Pelosi responsible for his withdrawal.
“A number of my Democratic colleagues in the House and Senate thought that I was going to hurt them in the races,” Biden explained.
“And I was concerned if I stayed in the race, that would be the topic—you’d be interviewing me about why did Nancy Pelosi say [something]… and I thought it’d be a real distraction.”
