Presidential election: US Democrat Pelosi regrets Biden’s late withdrawal

From the point of view of the 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her party’s defeat in the US presidential election could possibly have been prevented if incumbent Joe Biden had withdrawn earlier.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, perhaps other candidates would have entered the race,” said the former speaker of the US House of Representatives in a New York Times podcast scheduled to air on Saturday. Excerpts from the interview have already been published in advance.

The general expectation was that if Biden withdrew there would be an open selection process for the Democratic presidential nomination, Pelosi said. Instead, immediately after the waiver in July, Biden spoke out in favor of Kamala Harris as the opponent to Republican Donald Trump – thereby making a classic primary election “almost impossible.” If Biden had withdrawn much earlier, “things would have been different,” said the 84-year-old, who was long considered one of the most powerful pullers in the capital Washington.

With his approach, the president also deprived his deputy of a possible stage 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. That didn’t happen. We have to live with what happened.”