Date: 2025-02-04 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00027296
US POLITICS
NANCY PELOSI
Nancy Pelosi Defends Pushing Out Biden in Hilarious Statement
The former House speaker is owning what she did, and not sorry about it.
NANCY PELOSI
Nancy Pelosi Defends Pushing Out Biden in Hilarious Statement
The former House speaker is owning what she did, and not sorry about it.
Nancy Pelosi smiles, dressed in formal evening wear. Others are in the background.
Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
Original article: https://newrepublic.com/post/185020/nancy-pelosi-defends-pushing-out-biden-withdraw-hilarious-statement
Peter Burgess COMMENTARY
Politics at the highest levels is 'ultra hard ball' and my impression is that Pelosi is a 'master'.
I am three years older than President Biden and have experienced the issue of 'agism' in my own career. I have not achieved much of consquence since I turned 60, almost 25 years ago, even though, in most respects I was better at the work I was doing than I had been in previous years.
In my own case, I have tried to 'rethink' how to make my old age as 'productive' as possible. One of my initiatives that seems to have possibilities is taking a retrospective look at my early career experience in the 60s and 70s that morphed into a very different world in the subsequent decades. This might have some utility because a lot of the powerful analysts today have no 'lived experience of the 1960s and 70s which have had a huge role in setting the stage for the modern world, for Reagan and subsequent American Presidents.
In the context of Kamala Harris getting to carry the torch post-Biden ... it may not have been 'easy', but it has the potential for it to be one of the most consequential steps in American history. So 'kudos' to everyone involved!
Peter Burgess
The former House speaker is owning what she did—and she’s not sorry about it.
Hafiz Rashid
August 19, 2024/5:16 p.m. ET
Representative Nancy Pelosi isn’t worried about what people are saying regarding her role in President Biden withdrawing from the 2024 presidential election.
The former speaker of the House told CNN Monday morning that “I have my relationship with the president, and I just wanted to win this election. So if they’re upset, I’m sorry for them. But the country is very happy … I don’t know who they are, but, you know, that’s their problem, not mine.”
Pelosi’s public comments were a major factor in Biden’s decision to step away. After Biden had a disastrous debate performance against Donald Trump on June 27, calls for him to drop out of the race began, and Pelosi refused to reject those calls, cryptically saying that the decision was up to the president.
Pelosi and Biden have reportedly not spoken since the president made the decision to step down, with Biden upset with the former speaker. Other Democratic leaders, including Senator Chuck Schumer, Representative Hakeem Jeffries, and former president Barack Obama were also in favor of Biden stepping down.
The move was attacked by Republicans as a “coup,” and Harris’s entry into the presidential race has led to them spiraling further and further into conspiracy theories as the new Democratic ticket continues to rise in the polls. Pelosi, meanwhile, has recently published a memoir about her time in politics, called The Art of Power.
Pelosi may have even played a role in selecting Harris’s running mate, reportedly speaking favorably about “her former House colleagues” whenever she was asked about V.P. prospects before the Harris campaign’s announcement, a nod to Minnesota Governor Tim Walz’s time in the House. Based on the results of her actions, her comments on Monday seem like she has no regrets.