Former Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi twisted the knife even further in President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris by suggesting that Democrats should have been given the chance to choose a different candidate.
The 84-year-old also said that if Biden had dropped out sooner, the party she led for decades would have had time to consider its options.
The California lawmaker’s devastating comments to the New York Times come as a civil war has broken out among Democrats over Donald Trump’s defeat.
Pelosi’s admission that she didn’t want Kamala Harris to automatically become the nominee after Joe Biden’s exit in mid-July appears to be damage control by the longtime Democratic kingmaker after this week’s embarrassing loss.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, arrives as supporters wait to hear Democratic presidential candidate, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, concede the election, at Howard University on November 6, 2024 in Washington, DC. Pelosi said she wished Harris wasn’t automatically in the party’s nomination
The veteran lawmaker admitted she wanted the cancellation of the president’s campaign, which she helped orchestrate, to go in a different direction.
“If the president had come out sooner, there might have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi said.
“The expectation was that if the president stepped aside, there would be an open primary.”
Those primaries would have allowed many different Democratic candidates to throw their hat in the ring and make their case before the delegates.
There seemed to be a slew of candidates on the horizon, some included Michelle Obama, others said Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and California Governor Gavin Newsom.
Newsom denied that he would replace Biden earlier this year when pressed by DailyMail.com, although many reports indicate he is a top candidate.
Democratic presidential candidate US Vice President Kamala Harris reacts as she makes remarks conceding the 2024 US presidential election to President-elect Donald Trump
Pelosi spoke emphatically to Democratic bosses during Harris’ concession speech. Above, she is seen in conversation with Donna Brazile, the former DNC boss, and DC Mayor Muriel Bowser
Pelosi and Biden sat far apart at Ethel Kennedy’s funeral last month
But that primary never took place.
Immediately after Biden’s announcement on July 21 that he would not seek re-election, he supported his vice president.
“And because the president immediately endorsed Kamala Harris, that made it virtually impossible to hold a primary at that point,” Pelosi shockingly admitted.
“If it had been much earlier, it would have been different.”
“That didn’t happen,” the lawmaker said. “We live with what happened.”
Pelosi said Harris may have won the open primary, although that would not have been a certainty.
“And like I said, maybe Kamala, I think she would have done well in that and would have been stronger in the future,” Pelosi continued. “But we don’t know that.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., left, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California, right, walk together
Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders speaks during a rally in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, on February 26, 2020
The former speaker, who won her 20th consecutive election to the House of Representatives this week, also slammed progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., for his scathing criticism that Democrats are abandoning working-class voters.
“Bernie Sanders didn’t win,” she said.
Sanders came in second to Hillary Clinton in the 2016 Democratic presidential primary. He also ran an unsuccessful presidential campaign in 2020.
“With all due respect, and I have a lot of respect for him, for what he stands for, but I don’t respect him when he says the Democratic Party has failed working families.”