Our most recent book is Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics. Less than 48 hours after Biden's withdrawal, Kamala Harris became the Democratic Party's presumptive nominee.
Pelosi’s methods of persuasion are, it is fair to say, significantly less beastly, yet Johnson would surely appreciate her brand of Machiavellian arm-twisting. And right now, as we witness the transformative results of Joe Biden’s decision to stand aside in the 2024 election and cede the nomination to Kamala Harris, it is worth remembering Pelosi’s interview on July 10th on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” Her stated reason for appearing was to stand beside, and promote, the cause of freedom in Belarus with the dissident politician Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya.
“That’s why I went on the show,” Pelosi insisted when we spoke for The New Yorker Radio Hour. Pelosi is gifted in many things; one of them is keeping a straight face while shovelling a certain amount of barnyard material on your wingtips. She told me, still maintaining an even gaze, that she thought she might actually escape the studio without anyone asking about Biden. “I was hoping not,” she told me. “I was going to talk my way through my five minutes and get out of there.”
Sure. Pelosi went on to say that she had been “startled” by Biden’s performance in the June 27th debate with Donald Trump, that she had “never” seen him in such an alarming and confused state. “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.”
And so, on “Morning Joe,” when asked, inevitably, about Biden’s prickly reluctance to give up the race, Pelosi responded as if the President had not said, over and over, that he had no intention of giving in to the calls for him to step aside. “It’s up to the President to decide if he’s going to run,” she said evenly for the cameras. “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.” And then, to make sure her audience of one got the message, she added, “I want him to do whatever he decides to do, and that’s the way it is. Whatever he decides, we go with.”
Pelosi did not deny the craft or the intent of what she had done. Countless members of the commentariat and more than a few politicians had already pressed Biden to call off his campaign, but, after Pelosi’s breakfast-time performance, something began to give way, perhaps even in the Biden household. Pelosi’s message delivery was arguably as essential to Biden’s decision to stand aside as the moment at the conclusion of the Watergate scandal when, on August 7, 1974, the Republican congressional heavies Barry Goldwater, John Rhodes, and Hugh Scott went to the White House to make it plain to Richard Nixon that he had lost all support on the Hill. On August 8th, Nixon announced that he would resign.
Without quite admitting to playing a singularly decisive role in the Biden drama—and it would be uncharacteristically vain to do so—Pelosi told me, “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, really, a 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.”
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Then Pelosi dropped her calculated reserve. “I’ve never been that impressed with his political operation,” she admitted. “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.”
To those around her who were saying her appearance on “Morning Joe” gave them the “space” to call on Biden to leave the campaign—the “permission structure,” as D.C. lingo now has it—she counselled, Wait for the NATO summit to end; no need to embarrass the President with so many foreign leaders in the country. But then, “We need the President to make the decision.”
Which is precisely what happened. On July 21st, ten days after the NATO summit ended, Biden issued a statement via social media announcing his withdrawal.
Jonathan Lemire et al. at Politico:
A senior White House official, also granted anonymity to describe private conversations, said Biden views Pelosi as “ruthless” and willing to set aside long-term relationships in order to keep her party in power — and, most importantly, to prevent Republican nominee Donald Trump from returning to the White House.
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But Biden’s inner circle believes Pelosi was the decisive voice in pushing him out.
His allies thought that, after nearly two weeks of trying to reassure fellow Democrats, his candidacy was on track to be salvaged the morning of July 10. But that was when Pelosi made a now-infamous appearance on “Morning Joe,” repeatedly making clear that she did not support Biden continuing his candidacy. The president’s aides believe that opened the door for a host of other Democrats and donors to follow suit.
Moreover, Biden’s inner circle told him the day before he dropped out that if he persisted in the race they believed that Pelosi was going to take her misgivings public — including her belief that Trump would defeat him — which would have been deeply humiliating for a sitting president, two of the people said.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Monday said that Biden “respects” Pelosi and insisted that he has “no hard feelings.”
Some White House senior aides also expressed private irritation after Pelosi, in an interview last week with The New Yorker, said she was unimpressed with the Biden political operation despite its 2020 victory. She later couched those comments, saying she had “praise” for Biden and his political operation for winning the 2020 election.
