The reason Nancy Pelosi has been making TV appearances and giving interviews this week is because she’s shilling for her latest book, The Art of Power. Almost no one gives a f–k about this book, and yet Pelosi is still on a really high-profile promotional tour. That’s because everyone knows that Pelosi publicly and privately shanked President Biden in the back after his awful debate performance in June and everyone’s dying for the gossip. It wasn’t just her public statements and her lack of discretion when discussing the state of play within the Dem caucus – it’s that she didn’t even have a plan for what came next, other than “open mini-primary in July/August” and “throw Kamala Harris out with Biden.” What went down was political malpractice from Pelosi and many Democrats, and while everyone is on the Kamala Harris bandwagon now, it could have easily blown up into something really awful. All of which to say, Pelosi is still talking, this time to the New Yorker. Some highlights:
Before Biden’s debate, she was supportive: “In fact, earlier in the day, when I was with the members, they were, like, Oh, how’s it going to be? ‘Trump will be so awful,’ I said. ‘Don’t worry about it. The Joe Biden of the State of the Union is going to show up. It’s going to be great.’ In fact, I didn’t even want him to be in a debate. . . . I said, [Trump’s] doggy doo-doo. You’re going to get doggy doo-doo on your shoe. It’s not a good thing. You can’t. We’re just talking shorthand here, right? You can’t do that. But [Biden] was going to do it. He felt great. And I had confidence in him. I didn’t think it wouldn’t be good. I just didn’t want him to be seen with that guy. And then that happened, and I think everybody was stunned. It was stunning.”
What she said on Morning Joe which changed everything: “It’s up to the President to decide if he’s going to run. We’re all encouraging him to make that decision, because time is running short. . . . He’s beloved, he’s respected, and people want him to make that decision. I want him to do whatever he decides to do, and that’s the way it is. Whatever he decides, we go with.”
She loves Joe Biden: “Here’s the thing: I’ve known Joe Biden for over forty years, since I was chair of the California Democratic Party, and I love him so much. I think he’s been a really fantastic President of the United States. I really wanted him to make a decision for a better campaign, because they were not facing the fact of what was happening…. We couldn’t see it go down the drain, because Trump was going to be President and then he was going to take the House. Imagine! Imagine how that would be! Well, we don’t have to imagine. We saw.”
She hated Joe Biden’s political operation: “I’ve never been that impressed with his political operation. They won the White House. Bravo. But my concern was: this ain’t happening, and we have to make a decision for this to happen. The President has to make the decision for that to happen. People were calling. I never called one person. I kept true to my word. Any conversation I had, it was just going to be with him. I never made one call. They said I was burning up the lines, I was talking to Chuck [Schumer]. I didn’t talk to Chuck at all. I never called one person, but people were calling me saying that there was a challenge there. So there had to be a change in the leadership of the campaign, or what would come next.” Her goal, she added, was simple: “That Donald Trump would never set foot in the White House again.”
Whether she thinks her relationship with Biden will survive this: “I hope so. I pray so. I cry so. I lose sleep on it, yeah.” Do you think he’s angry at you? “I don’t know. We haven’t had a conversation. But . . .I think he’s in a good state. I mean, I think he did a remarkable thing, bringing home all these prisoners. Oh, my God, that was so masterful. . . . But my understanding is that he’s good. And the thing is that his legacy will go right down the drain if what’s-his-name ever [returns to] the White House. Whether it’s the planet, whether it’s fairness in our economy, whether it’s the safety of our children . . .”
“I think he did a remarkable thing, bringing home all these prisoners,” which he was negotiating and masterminding while Pelosi was going on TV to knife him in the back. She also says that she told Democrats to wait until the NATO Summit was over… only she did not wait and neither did Democrats. As for this: “I’ve never been that impressed with his political operation. They won the White House. Bravo.” Like… the Biden-Harris ticket won the most votes in American history in 2020. They created an effective plan to bring Rust Belt voters back into the party, shoring up Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan. They won GEORGIA. The campaign’s outreach to the Latin-American community shored up Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico. What did she not find impressive about Biden’s political operation? She was mad that his poll numbers were down after weeks of his own party publicly attacking him? What’s especially crazy about her disrespect for Biden’s political operation is that the exact same operation now belongs to Kamala Harris. Kamala is surrounded by Biden’s campaign staffers and the Biden apparatus. How long before Pelosi gets the urge to do political malpractice again?
Photos courtesy of Cover Images.