President Joe Biden still holds ill will toward former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and, to a lesser extent, former President Barack Obama for their roles in moving him off the Democratic ticket.
“Biden has told his closest aides and associates that he is coming to terms with his decision to bow out of the presidential race last month, but still harbors some frustration toward the members of his own party he believes pushed him out, according to three people familiar with Biden’s thinking who are not authorized to speak publicly about private conversations,” Politico reported Wednesday.
In all likelihood, Biden did authorize the unnamed sources to speak to the news outlet, but just not to go on the record with their names.
The president has not said so publicly, but, clearly, the truth is that hard feelings remain.
Biden only hinted at this reality in the first interview he gave since announcing he would not seek a second term. The interview aired on “CBS Sunday Morning” last weekend.
He named Pelosi specifically as part of his reasoning for getting out of the race against former President Donald Trump.
“Look, polls we had showed that it was a neck-and-neck race. It would have been down to the wire, but what happened was a number of my Democratic colleagues in the House and Senate thought that I was going to hurt them in their races,” Biden told CBS News correspondent Robert Costa.
“And I was concerned if I stayed in the race, that would be the topic,” he added. “You’d be interviewing me about, ‘why did Nancy Pelosi say …,’ ‘why did so …’ and — and I thought it’d be a real distraction.”
President Biden details what led to his decision to drop out of the 2024 campaign, saying that “a number of my Democratic colleagues in the House and Senate thought that I was gonna hurt them in the races.”
“I was concerned if I stayed in the race, that would be the topic…I… pic.twitter.com/oFqPehepQw
— CBS Sunday Morning 🌞 (@CBSSunday) August 11, 2024
Pelosi was really the one who got the ball rolling to replace Biden when she signaled during a July 10 interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that her backing of the president’s candidacy was less than rock solid following his disastrous debate performance against Trump on June 27.
MSNBC host Jonathan Lemire, one of four who co-authored Wednesday’s piece in Politico, asked her, “Does [Biden] have your support to be the head of the Democratic ticket?”
“It’s up to the president to decide if he is going to run. We’re all encouraging him to make that decision because time is running short,” Pelosi responded.
“He’s beloved. He is respected, and people want him to make that decision,” she added.
Lemire pointed out that Biden at that time had firmly stated that he had no intentions of dropping out of the race.
“I want him to do whatever he decides to do. And that’s the way it is. Whatever he decides, we go with,” Pelosi reiterated.
“The comment ricocheted around the Capitol, a signal to the party she long led that the president’s candidacy and looming nomination were not yet a settled matter,” Politico reported last month, in another piece co-authored by Lemire.
In the meantime, the former speaker was working behind the scenes to oust Biden, Politico reported.
“Nancy made clear [to Biden’s people] that they could do this the easy way or the hard way,” one Democratic source familiar with private conversations said, according to the news outlet. “She gave them three weeks of the easy way. It was about to be the hard way.”
Politico indicated “the hard way” might have included Pelosi making her beliefs public that Trump would beat Biden, “which would have been deeply humiliating for a sitting president,” two unnamed sources told Politico.
Others have suggested threats of invoking the 25th Amendment to immediately remove him from office may have been the leverage used to force Biden to make his “decision” to not seek a second term.
Will Biden serve the remainder of his term as president?
Biden’s main frustration with Obama, according to Politico, is that Obama wouldn’t tell him to his face about any concerns the former president had about his former vice president’s candidacy.
Obama had shown support for Biden with a post on X after the June debate, writing bad nights happen, but then went dark, letting the momentum to remove the president build.
Pelosi told CNN last week that she and Biden have not spoken since he left the race.
“Is everything OK with your relationship?” CNN host Dana Bash asked.
“You’d have to ask him, but I hope so,” Pelosi answered.
BASH: “Have you spoken to President Biden since he dropped out?”
PELOSI: “No”
BASH: “Is everything ok with your relationship?”
PELOSI: “You’d have to ask him, but I hope so, but he knows.”
This is the same lady who forced him out of the race. pic.twitter.com/GjPqHiFyNC
— The Conservative Patriot (@TheConserv55806) August 6, 2024
CNN reported, “A source with direct knowledge later described Biden as ‘seething’ at Pelosi.”
Democrats are expected to give Biden a grand send-off at their convention next week.
