First lady Jill Biden is expressing her disappointment with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the longtime lawmaker’s widely reported role in persuading President Joe Biden’s decision to drop his reelection bid.
The first lady touched on the subject in an exit interview with the Washington Post on Wednesday. “It’s been on my mind a lot lately,” Biden told the paper. “We were friends for 50 years. It was disappointing.”
President Joe Biden performed disastrously in the June debate against his opponent, Republican then-nominee Donald Trump, and made several public missteps in the following weeks that prompted massive concern about his chances in the election within Democratic Party circles.
Pelosi reportedly had pressured the president to reconsider his run before he ultimately announced his exit in July. She has declined to confirm many specifics, but in August admitted that she will need to “come to terms” with her “own role” in his choice.
“Let’s just say I was disappointed with how it unfolded,” Jill Biden told the Post. “I learned a lot about human nature.”
President Joe Biden endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to replace him as the Democratic nominee, only for her to lose the election. Before November, Pelosi claimed Democratshad had an open primary of sorts, but after Harris’ loss, Pelosi argued that her candidacy would’ve been stronger if Biden had left sooner.
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“The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary,” Pelosi told the New York Times after the presidential election, adding that Harris “would have done well in that and been stronger going forward.”
President Biden told USA Today last week that he thinks he would’ve defeated Trump, had he decided to stay in the race. When asked whether he would’ve been fit enough to serve another four-year term, however, he said, “I don’t know. Who the hell knows?”
His wife appeared slightly more confident. She told the Post, “Sure. I mean, today, I think he has a full schedule. He started early with interviews and briefings, and it just keeps going.”