Nancy Pelosi says Biden’s delay in exiting race blew Democrats’ chances
Had Biden left sooner, she noted, the party could have an open primary. Now they must ‘live with what happened’Martin Pengelly in Washington
Fri 8 Nov 2024 16.37 EST
Joe Biden’s slowness in exiting the 2024 presidential election cost the Democrats dearly, the former House speaker Nancy Pelosi said, days after Kamala Harris was beaten by Donald Trump.
“We live with what happened,” Pelosi said.
Pelosi was speaking to The Interview, a New York Times podcast, in a conversation the newspaper said would be published Saturday in full.
“Had the president gotten out sooner,” Pelosi remarked, “there may have been other candidates in the race. The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary.
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“And as I say, Kamala may have, I think she would have done well in that and been stronger going forward. But we don’t know that. That didn’t happen. We live with what happened. And because the president endorsed Kamala Harris immediately, that really made it almost impossible to have a primary at that time. If it had been much earlier, it would have been different.”
As Democrats engaged in bitter blame games over Harris’s defeat and a second presidency for Trump, who senior Democrats from Harris down freely called a “fascist”, Pelosi’s words landed like an explosive shell.
The Times said Pelosi “went to great lengths to defend the Biden administration’s legislative accomplishments, most of which took place during his first two years, when she was the House speaker”.
Nancy Pelosi says Biden’s delay in exiting race blew Democrats’ chances
Had Biden left sooner, she noted, the party could have an open primary. Now they must ‘live with what happened’
www.theguardian.com
