Nancy Pelosi secretly urged Biden not to participate in disastrous 2024 debate against Trump
WASHINGTON, DC: A new book claims that Nancy Pelosi did not want then-President Joe Biden to debate against Donald Trump before the 2024 November election.
Journalists Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes, who have written 'FIGHT: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House', spoke to former Politico reporter Tara Palmeri about a secret conflict between Biden’s team and other Democratic Party members before his abrupt exit from last year's race, as per The New York Post.
Allen told Palmeri, "Joe Biden wanted to debate really badly. He wanted this fight. He relished it. You’ve heard Biden before say things like 'I want to meet him out behind the schoolyard.’ He really wanted to debate."
Nancy Pelosi asked Joe Biden not to 'lower' himself in front of Donald Trump
But the 52nd speaker of the US House of Representatives was against it.
The 85-year-old politician "went to him and tried to play to his ego, saying, 'You shouldn’t lower yourself, you shouldn’t lower the presidency to Donald Trump,'" Allen claimed.
"Even in her mind, she would say to him, ‘Don’t roll around in the mud.' Remember, she hates Donald Trump … She kind of lays it on thick with Biden and says, ‘This is going to lower you’ because she knows that might appeal to him," he further shared.
Allen also mentioned that Pelosi was not sure of Biden’s ability to tackle the Republican leader.
"If she thought Biden was going to beat Donald Trump in a debate, she would have been telling him to debate," the journalist asserted.
Besides Pelosi, political strategist Anita Dunn was also against the idea of Biden debating Trump.
Nancy Pelosi was 'key figure' in getting Joe Biden to change his mind about 2024 bid
Nancy Pelosi also allegedly played a key role in pushing the former commander-in-chief out of the 2024 race after seeing his performance during the debate.
As per Jonathan Alter’s book, 'American Reckoning: Inside Trump’s Trial—and My Own’, "The key figure in getting Biden to change his mind was Pelosi, who drew on their forty-year friendship. At first, she thought Biden could survive what he described as his 'bad night.'"
"But Pelosi is an institutionalist; she loves the House, and her nightmare of not regaining control of that chamber (when Democrats were so close to winning it back) seemed to be coming true," Alter stated.
Eventually, in July 2024, Biden stepped down from the race and endorsed former Vice President Kamala Harris as his successor. However, she lost the election to Trump, resulting in him becoming the 47th POTUS.
