President Joe Biden recently appeared on CBS for an interview, seemingly admitting that high-ranking members of his own party had essentially forced him out of the 2024 presidential race. Biden stated that his struggling campaign had Democrats in downstream races concerned that it would hurt them if he remained in the race.
After the late-June presidential debate between former President Donald Trump and Joe Biden, Democrats evidently lost faith in the president as their candidate as his declining mental acuity became indefensible. Subsequently, there were incessant calls for Biden to step down, which he eventually did last month, endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris.
Biden said in the interview, “The polls we had showed that it was the neck-and-neck race would have been down on the wire. But what happened was 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 about why did Nancy Pelosi say? Why did so and so…and I thought it’d be a real distraction.”
Notably, Nancy Pelosi has been the subject of intense criticism following Biden’s withdrawal from the race, where he many have placed significant blame on her for forcing Biden out. “History’s in a hurry. We’re right at the center of it all here,” Pelosi said about the change in the Democratic ticket. “At some point, I will come to terms with my own peace, with my own role in this.”
However, Nancy has stressed that the decision was solely Biden’s, stating, “Joe Biden made the decision for our country.” The former House Speaker simultaneously applauded his presidency, “The credit all goes to him, to evaluate what he was hearing and to make a decision on how to move forward. I think that part of it, all of our goals in this, was to preserve his legacy. A fabulous legacy.”
Pelosi later emphasized that she was not a “fan” of how the Biden campaign was being run, claiming a “decision” needed to be made imminently as the election grows nearer. “So it was really, ‘Let’s understand what’s at stake here and make a decision,’” she said. “I wasn’t a fan of how [Biden’s] campaign was proceeding, no.”
Despite her flattery toward Biden, Pelosi maintained that the Democratic Party was not on a path to victory with the president. “We did not have a campaign that was on the path to victory,” she said. Pelosi further illustrated her ambitions to prevent Trump from winning, “My goal in life is that that man would never step foot in the White House again.” She continued, “I could not see an unfolding of events that were just putting rose petals in front of him to go there.”
The American Tribune previously reported on a controversial comment from Biden during the same CBS interview in which the president claimed he wasn’t “confident” in a peaceful exchange of power in this election. “If Trump wins, no, I’m not confident at all. I mean if Trump loses I’m not confident at all,” he said. “He means what he says. We don’t take him seriously. He means it. All this stuff about ‘if we lose, it’ll be a bloodbath.’”
