USA US Democrat Pelosi regrets Biden's late withdrawal
From the perspective of influential Democrat Nancy Pelosi, her party's defeat in the US presidential election could possibly have been prevented if incumbent Joe Biden had withdrawn earlier. "If the president had dropped out earlier, maybe other candidates would have entered the race," said the former speaker of the US House of Representatives in a podcast for the New York Times, which is to be broadcast on Saturday. Excerpts of the interview have already been published in advance.
09.11.2024, 07:54
SDA
The general expectation had been that there would be an open selection process for the Democratic presidential candidacy if Biden withdrew, Pelosi said. Instead, immediately after declaring his withdrawal in July, Biden had declared himself in favor of Kamala Harris as the opposing candidate to Republican Donald Trump - thus making a classic primary "almost impossible". If Biden had withdrawn much earlier, "things would have been different", said the 84-year-old, who was long regarded as one of the most powerful string-pullers in the Washington capital.
With his approach, the president had also deprived his deputy of a potential platform on which she could have scored points. Harris "could have emerged stronger" from an internal party selection process, Pelosi said. "But we don't know. It didn't come to that. We have to live with what happened."
