{"id":44148,"date":"2024-10-15T07:09:58","date_gmt":"2024-10-15T07:09:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/?p=44148"},"modified":"2024-10-15T07:10:00","modified_gmt":"2024-10-15T07:10:00","slug":"pelosi-says-she-still-hasnt-spoken-to-biden-since-pressuring-him-to-drop-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/2024\/10\/15\/pelosi-says-she-still-hasnt-spoken-to-biden-since-pressuring-him-to-drop-out\/","title":{"rendered":"Pelosi says she still hasn\u2019t spoken to Biden since pressuring him to drop out"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Nancy Pelosi has admitted she still has not spoken to Joe Biden since her crucial intervention in July led to his decision to drop out of the presidential race, following a disastrously frail performance in a debate against\u00a0Donald Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The former speaker of the House told the Guardian\u2019s Jonathan Freedland on the Politics Weekly America podcast that although she continues to regard the US president as a great friend and longtime political ally, she felt a cold political calculation was necessary after the evidence of Biden\u2019s failing mental acuity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNot since then, no,\u201d she said when asked if she had spoken to Biden since. \u201cBut I\u2019m prayerful about it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She added: \u201c<\/strong>I have the greatest respect for him. I think he\u2019s one of the great consequential presidents of our country,\u201d she said. \u201cI think his legacy had to be protected. I didn\u2019t see that happening in the course that it was on, the election was on. My call was just to: \u2018Let\u2019s get on a better course.\u2019 He will make the decision as to what that is. And he made that decision. But I think he has some unease because we\u2019ve been friends for decades.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cElections are decisions,\u201d she added. \u201cYou 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 \u2026 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.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pelosi admitted that some in Biden\u2019s campaign may not have forgiven her for her role in limiting Biden\u2019s legacy to one term, but that a Trump victory would have equally reflected terribly on his legacy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Known as a uniquely influential House speaker, particularly during a Biden administration that passed major legislation on infrastructure and climate, Pelosi was widely seen as a senior Democrat willing to indicate that Biden should reconsider his bid for re-election when the polls showed Trump beating him badly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After Biden did step aside, Pelosi then encouraged the party to endorse\u00a0Kamala Harris\u00a0\u2013 and scored yet another victory when the vice-president named former congressman Tim Walz as her running mate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pelosi has also been a longtime thorn in Trump\u2019s side, frequently antagonizing him into posting long rants about her on social media, and publicly ripping up his State of the Union speech in 2020 on the podium of the House of Representatives, calling it a \u201cmanifesto of mistruths\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Explaining her unique ability to hold together a fragile coalition of centrist and progressive\u00a0Democrats, Pelosi explained that she thought \u201cleadership is about respect, about consensus building\u201d, while deriding Trump\u2019s ability to do anything of the sort, particularly with his hateful rhetoric towards immigrants, who he has described as \u201cpoisoning the blood of this country\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI hardly ever say his name,\u201d she says of Trump, instead describing him as \u201cwhat\u2019s-his-name\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think [Trump is] a grotesque word \u2026 You just don\u2019t like the word passing your lips. I just don\u2019t. I\u2019m afraid, you know, when I grew up Catholic, as I am now, if you said a bad word, you could burn in hell if you didn\u2019t have a chance to confess. So I don\u2019t want to take any chances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s up there with like, swearing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In her new book, The Art of Power, Pelosi describes being the first woman speaker of the House, and her disappointment at the failure of Hillary Clinton\u2019s campaign for president in 2016, but says she remains optimistic that Harris will make history where Clinton could not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI always thought America was more ready for a woman president than a woman speaker of the House,\u201d she told the Guardian. \u201cThe Congress of the United States is not a glass ceiling there. It\u2019s a marble ceiling. And it was very hard to rise up there. But the public, I think, is better disposed \u2026 In Congress, they would say to me: \u201cUnderstand this, there\u2019s been a pecking order here for a long time of men who\u2019ve been waiting for openings to happen and take their turn.\u201d And I said: \u201cThat\u2019s interesting. We\u2019ve been waiting over 200 years.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She praised Harris, however, for not running as \u201cthe first woman or first woman of color. She\u2019s running on her strength, her knowledge of policy and strategy and presentation and the rest. And I think that\u2019s a different race than Hillary Clinton ran.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Noting that more women support Harris and more men support Trump by considerable margins, Pelosi said: \u201cThe reason that there\u2019s such a gender gulf is because there\u2019s such a gulf in terms of policies that affect women.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA woman\u2019s right to choose is a personal issue. It\u2019s an economic issue, but it\u2019s also a democracy issue. This is an issue about freedom, freedom to manage your own life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat is a democracy? It is free and fair elections. It\u2019s a peaceful transfer of power. It\u2019s independent judiciary and is the personal freedoms in the bill of rights of our constitution. And he is assaulting those by particularly harshly on women, harshly on women. Did you see the other day? He said Kamala Harris was retarded. This is a person running for president of the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Has he no respect for the office? Has he no decency about how to communicate?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pelosi spoke about her fear of political violence, noting that misinformation spread by Trump had caused an atmosphere in which US disaster response agency Fema had to withdraw rescue workers from parts of North Caroline hit by a hurricane after reports of trucks of militia saying they were hunting Fema workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is springing from the top,\u201d she said of Trump\u2019s role in fomenting political violence. \u201cHe\u2019s taking pride in doing it. Don\u2019t take it from me, take it from him.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After an armed assailant\u00a0attacked her husband, Paul Pelosi, in their home after breaking in with an intent to harm her, many Republicans made jokes \u2013 including Trump\u2019s son Donald Jr, who suggested he would dress as Paul Pelosi for Halloween.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen it happened, what was so sad for my children and grandchildren was that [some Republicans] thought it was a riot \u2013 they were laughing and making jokes \u2026 his son, all those people making jokes about it, right away. We didn\u2019t even know if he was going to live or die.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asked if she agreed with the recent remarks of the former chairperson of the joint chiefs, Mark Milley, a Trump appointee, that Trump was \u201ca fascist to the core\u201d, Pelosi said:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes, I do. I do. And I know it\u2019s interesting because Kamala Harris says, I\u2019ve prosecuted people like Trump. I know men like that. No, I know him<\/em>,\u201d she said, stressing Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"a<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere\u2019s one picture of me leaving the Roosevelt Room at the cabinet meeting. And I\u2019m pointing to him and I\u2019m saying, I\u2019m leaving this meeting because with you, Mr President, all roads lead to Putin. [Milley\u2019s] comment, \u2018fascist to the core\u2019, speaks to the actions that he has taken. Trivialize the press, fake news \u2013 that is a tactic of fascist governments.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She added that a possible repeat of January 6 was a key reason for the importance of Democrats at least winning the House in 2024. \u201cHakeem Jeffries must have the gavel, which means that we have the majority of the votes to accept the results of the electoral college for the peaceful transfer of power.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018\u201cNobody could have ever seen an insurrection incited by the president of the United States. But an outsider, as a loser in this election, once again, he might try that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Later in the interview, Pelosi said Trump\u2019s name, then caught herself. \u201cI said his name. Oh my gosh. I hope I don\u2019t burn in hell.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nancy Pelosi has admitted she still has not spoken to Joe Biden since her crucial intervention in July led to his decision to drop out of the presidential race, following a disastrously frail performance in a debate against\u00a0Donald Trump. The former speaker of the House told the Guardian\u2019s Jonathan Freedland on the Politics Weekly America […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":26917,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[5178,11941,3782,10387,6609,8924,8256,287,12679,7711,6693,11399,11606,5799,6576,10505,911,7298,11949,8057,4028,6225,5579,8811,2828,11491,1444,1143,10769,9657,1407,9222,8995,11493,2471,5406,5205,11398,3114,3874,9974,11743,10832,9833,12309,8101,2470,7964,8378,7811,5424,3805,11377,71,6200,6575,13301,13235,11304,5349,9277,10041,5020,11389,7231,9262,6348,11331,10885,11492,6571,2982,5273,5320,594],"class_list":["post-44148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news","tag-biden","tag-bill","tag-cabinet","tag-campaign","tag-catholic","tag-chance","tag-chiefs","tag-children","tag-clinton","tag-cold","tag-congress","tag-debate","tag-democracy","tag-democrat","tag-democrats","tag-die","tag-election","tag-fake","tag-fake-news","tag-fear","tag-freedom","tag-friends","tag-gulf","tag-hakeem-jeffries","tag-halloween","tag-harris","tag-hell","tag-hillary-clinton","tag-house-speaker","tag-hunting","tag-hurricane","tag-immigrants","tag-infrastructure","tag-interview","tag-joe-biden","tag-judiciary","tag-july","tag-kamala","tag-kamala-harris","tag-lead","tag-leadership","tag-majority","tag-manifesto","tag-meeting","tag-men","tag-militia","tag-nancy-pelosi","tag-north","tag-paul-pelosi","tag-pelosi","tag-politics","tag-president","tag-presidential","tag-putin","tag-race","tag-republicans","tag-results","tag-riot","tag-running-mate","tag-social-media","tag-speaker","tag-speech","tag-the-vice-president","tag-tim-walz","tag-union","tag-united-states","tag-us","tag-us-president","tag-victory","tag-walz","tag-white","tag-white-house","tag-woman","tag-women","tag-who"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44148"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44148\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44149,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44148\/revisions\/44149"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}