The former speaker of US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi said that President Joe Biden should have withdrawn earlier from participating in the election lost by their Democratic Party, Reuters reported, quoted by BTA.
Pelosi herself, 84, retained her seat in the lower house of Congress on Tuesday, where she will remain for a 20th term. She stepped down as its speaker in 2022 when Republicans won a majority in the House of Representatives.
"If the president had stepped down earlier, there might have been other candidates in the race," Pelosi said in an interview with the "New York Times", given Thursday and published yesterday. She suggested that the Democrats lost out by not having time to organize a true primary to nominate the party's presidential candidate.
Pelosi defended Kamala Harris's candidacy in her own right and conceded that the vice president would have won a real primary, but added that her elevation simply as the 81-year-old president's replacement did not give her candidacy the weight it needed. .
It is claimed that the influential Democrat from the state of California was part of the behind-the-scenes effort to convince Biden to withdraw, Reuters notes.
The US president left the race in July and immediately endorsed the candidacy of his deputy. Biden did so under intense public pressure after his poor performance in televised debates with Republican Donald Trump the previous month. However, he refused to withdraw for some time.
Pelosi blamed Biden for the election loss, at a time when mutual finger-pointing by Democrats is intensifying, notes the BBC.
The party lost not only the presidential election, but also control of the Senate. Counting of votes for the House of Representatives, meanwhile, continues, but the outlook is not good there either.
According to the latest data of the specialized website "Real Clear Politics" (RealClearPolitics) Republicans have so far secured 214 seats (plus 1) and Democrats - 205 (minus 1). There are 16 more seats up for grabs in the 435-member House of Representatives, meaning Trump's party needs just four more to secure a majority.