Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said it was President Joe Biden’s faulth that Vice President Kamala Harris was handily defeated by President-elect Donald Trump.
The ex-Speaker of the House, who was instrumental in rallying Democrats behind the scenes to edge Biden out after his poor debate showing against Trump, came out swinging during a conversation with The New York Times.
“Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi remarked. “The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary.”
“Kamala may have, I think she would have done well in that and been stronger going forward,” she continued. “But we don’t know that. That didn’t happen. We live with what happened.”
Pelosi also blamed Biden for endorsing Harris “immediately” after he dropped out of the race, which she claimed made it “almost impossible” to hold a primary.
“If it had been much earlier, it would have been different,” she added.
During the same interview, Pelosi vented her frustration over Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) claiming that the Democrats lost because they put more stock in identity politics instead of economic issues.
“Bernie Sanders has not won,” Pelosi stated. “With all due respect, and I have a great deal of respect for him, for what he stands for, but I don’t respect him saying that the Democratic Party has abandoned the working-class families.”
“Guns, God and gays — that’s the way they say it,” she went on. “Guns, that’s an issue; gays, that’s an issue, and now they’re making the trans issue such an important issue in their priorities; and in certain communities, what they call God, what we call a woman’s right to choose.”
