Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden are reportedly not on speaking terms months after Pelosi urged the President to withdraw from the race for a second term, according to a Daily Mail report on Wednesday.
Pelosi’s bold move left both Joe and Jill Biden feeling shaken and resentful toward the veteran politician, who is actually older than Biden. Just days before his abrupt announcement to exit the presidential race, Biden had insisted he was not going anywhere, despite receiving harsh criticism for his performance during a debate with former President Donald Trump on June 27. After effectively sidelining Biden, Pelosi claimed that Vice President Kamala Harris would win the nomination in an “open primary.”
In a podcast interview with the Guardian on Tuesday, Pelosi confirmed that she and Biden have not communicated since she pushed him out of the race. “Not since then, no. But I’m prayerful about it,” she stated, asserting that her actions were in the best interest of the Democratic Party and its chances of winning the presidential election.
“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 explained. “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.”
Despite her cold calculation, Pelosi insisted she still holds Biden in high regard. “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.’”
Pelosi claimed her decision to push Biden out stemmed from a July 8, 2024, letter he reportedly wrote, indicating he had no intention of stepping aside for another Democratic candidate. “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.”
Pelosi has hinted at the growing animosity between the Bidens and the Pelosis. When asked by CNN about the conflict, she cryptically stated, “Sometimes you have to take a punch for the children,” according to the Mail.
Nevertheless, she emphasized that Biden had “made the decision for the country,” noting the enthusiasm surrounding Harris. She has been a steadfast supporter of Harris, asserting, “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.
She praised Harris, however, for not running as “the first woman or first woman of color. 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.”
Noting that more women support Harris and more men support Trump by considerable margins, Pelosi said: “The reason that there’s such a gender gulf is because there’s such a gulf in terms of policies that affect women.
“A woman’s right to choose is a personal issue. It’s an economic issue, but it’s also a democracy issue. This is an issue about freedom, freedom to manage your own life.”