Former US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi said if US President Joe Biden had ended his re-election bid sooner, the Democratic Party could have held a competitive nominating process to choose his replacement.
“Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi said in an interview on Thursday published by the New York Times the next day.
“The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary,” she said.
Photo: AP
Pelosi said she thought the Democratic candidate, US Vice President Kamala Harris, “would have done well in that and been stronger going forward. But we don’t know that. That didn’t happen.”
She said that since Biden endorsed Harris immediately, “that really made it almost impossible to have a primary at that time. If it had been much earlier, it would have been different.”
Republican Donald Trump soundly defeated Harris in Tuesday’s election to recapture the White House.
“I don’t think that any review of the election should be predicated on weaknesses, but strengths of Kamala Harris. She gave people hope. She caused a great deal of excitement in all this,” Pelosi said in the New York Times interview, according to quotes provided to Reuters by her office.
On an open primary, Pelosi said: “Kamala, I think, still would’ve won, but she may have been stronger having taken her case to the public sooner.”
Biden, 81, ended his re-election bid in July and immediately endorsed Harris after a poor debate performance against Trump, 78, sparked concerns that he could not beat the former president nor complete a second four-year term.
Pelosi reportedly was part of a behind-the-scenes effort to pressure Biden to abandon his campaign.
Pelosi left her leadership post in the House of Representatives after Republicans won control of the chamber in the 2022 elections. However, she remained in the House and was elected to a 20th term on Tuesday.
‘GREAT OPPRTUNITY’: The Paraguayan president made the remarks following Donald Trump’s tapping of several figures with deep Latin America expertise for his Cabinet Paraguay President Santiago Pena called US president-elect Donald Trump’s incoming foreign policy team a “dream come true” as his nation stands to become more relevant in the next US administration. “It’s a great opportunity for us to advance very, very fast in the bilateral agenda on trade, security, rule of law and make Paraguay a much closer ally” to the US, Pena said in an interview in Washington ahead of Trump’s inauguration today. “One of the biggest challenges for Paraguay was that image of an island surrounded by land, a country that was isolated and not many people know about it,”
DIALOGUE: US president-elect Donald Trump on his Truth Social platform confirmed that he had spoken with Xi, saying ‘the call was a very good one’ for the US and China US president-elect Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) discussed Taiwan, trade, fentanyl and TikTok in a phone call on Friday, just days before Trump heads back to the White House with vows to impose tariffs and other measures on the US’ biggest rival. Despite that, Xi congratulated Trump on his second term and pushed for improved ties, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. The call came the same day that the US Supreme Court backed a law banning TikTok unless it is sold by its China-based parent company. “We both attach great importance to interaction, hope for
‘FIGHT TO THE END’: Attacking a court is ‘unprecedented’ in South Korea and those involved would likely face jail time, a South Korean political pundit said Supporters of impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol yesterday stormed a Seoul court after a judge extended the impeached leader’s detention over his ill-fated attempt to impose martial law. Tens of thousands of people had gathered outside the Seoul Western District Court on Saturday in a show of support for Yoon, who became South Korea’s first sitting head of state to be arrested in a dawn raid last week. After the court extended his detention on Saturday, the president’s supporters smashed windows and doors as they rushed inside the building. Hundreds of police officers charged into the court, arresting dozens and denouncing an
CYBERSCAM: Anne, an interior decorator with mental health problems, spent a year and a half believing she was communicating with Brad Pitt and lost US$855,259 A French woman who revealed on TV how she had lost her life savings to scammers posing as Brad Pitt has faced a wave of online harassment and mockery, leading the interview to be withdrawn on Tuesday. The woman, named as Anne, told the Seven to Eight program on the TF1 channel how she had believed she was in a romantic relationship with the Hollywood star, leading her to divorce her husband and transfer 830,000 euros (US$855,259). The scammers used fake social media and WhatsApp accounts, as well as artificial intelligence image-creating technology to send Anne selfies and other messages
RSS