Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., weighed in on President Biden ending his re-election campaign this year, saying that her concerns about Biden running again were not about the president himself but about his campaign.
Pelosi made her most recent comments about Biden stepping down from the campaign in a new interview with CNN host Christiane Amanpour that aired Saturday morning. Amanpour asked her about reports that she had a major role in convincing Biden to step down, asking her why it was the right move for the party.
“Now, my concerns were around the campaign, not about the candidate,” she said, adding, “He‘s fabulous.”
PELOSI DEMURS ON IF ‘EVERYTHING IS OK’ BETWEEN HER AND BIDEN: ‘YOU’D HAVE TO ASK HIM’
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., tells CNN’s Amanpour why she felt that President Biden not seeking re-election was the correct decision. (Screenshot/CNN)
Pelosi was one of several Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who reportedly called on Biden to step down following a disastrous debate performance in June.
Amanpour broached the topic by asking Pelosi if she has spoken to Biden since he was replaced by Vice President Harris at the top of the ticket.
“I haven’t spoken to him since July, but of course, we‘ve been out of session for a while and I‘ve been on the campaign trail constantly,” she said, stating that she has “great respect for the president.”
“I think his legacy is a very substantial one for our country. It is our legacy too. I did not want that to be lost,” Pelosi said, following up by saying she had problems with the campaign, not Biden himself.
“But the campaign, I thought, was not going in the right direction, and I expressed my concern about that,” she added.
Pelosi made similar points in a recent interview on The Guardian’s Politics Weekly America podcast. “I have the greatest respect for him. I think he’s one of the great consequential presidents of our country,” Pelosi said in the interview posted Tuesday. “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.”
She continued, telling the U.K. outlet, “My call was just to: ‘Let’s get on a better course.’ He will make the decision as to what that is. And he made that decision. But I think he has some unease because we’ve been friends for decades.”
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Pelosi told Amanpour she had concerns with Biden’s re-election campaign, not with him as the candidate. (SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)
During an interview with CBS News in August, Biden said that Democratic lawmakers urged him to step aside.
“A number of my Democratic colleagues in the House and Senate thought that I was going to hurt them in the races. And I was concerned if I stayed in the race, that would be the topic, you’d be interviewing me about why did Nancy Pelosi say – why did – and I thought it’d be a real distraction,” Biden told CBS News’ Bob Costa.
On CNN, Amanpour asked the congresswoman whether she believes the Democratic Party could have won the election if Biden was still on the ticket. Pelosi replied, “You see, it’s hard to ask me that question because I don’t understand how anybody could vote for Donald Trump, but they do and so we have to be prepared.”
She did admit to being concerned that Biden’s age was going to be a challenge for the party.
“I do think there was a generational thing though that had to be recognized – the two of them – so old to be running for president.”
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Fox News Digital’s Hanna Panreck contributed to this report.
