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OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author’s opinion.
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Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is defending her role in former President Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw from the 2024 race, admitting that she has yet to speak with the former president or former First Lady Jill Biden.
Biden made history last July by dropping out of the race after mounting pressure from Democratic lawmakers following his disastrous debate performance against now-President Donald Trump.
Pelosi was widely seen as a key figure behind the Democratic effort to push Biden out of the race. Since then, reports suggest tensions between the Bidens and Pelosi have remained strained, Fox News noted.
Earlier this month, MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell questioned Pelosi about Biden’s insistence—expressed even in the final days of his presidency—that he could have defeated Trump had he not been pressured to step aside.
“Well, all I know is that we won a seat in the house. We did not lose any seats,” Pelosi argued. “You know, people were like, ‘Oh, the Democrats lost!’ No, we did not. I think it would have been quite different with President Biden at the top of the ticket.”
Mitchell noted that Jill Biden expressed she was “disappointed” with Pelosi’s actions during an interview with the Washington Post. In late January, Jill told the Post that Pelosi’s actions had “been on my mind a lot lately,” noting, “We were friends for 50 years. It was disappointing.”
Mitchell asked Pelosi, “Is there any way to patch that up? Have you spoken to her?”
“Well, I certainly hope so,” Pelosi replied. “No, I haven’t [spoken to Jill Biden], but the fact is that we’re all on a mission for the American people, for the American people, for America’s working families.”
Pelosi suggested to the news host that politics can resemble maintaining a marriage for the sake of one’s children.
“My whole passion about being in politics is for the children. So what is it that we’re doing for the children?” the Speaker Emerita said. “I think that it would have been important for the children to not have Donald Trump be president of the United States, and that is – I would take every step necessary to make sure that didn’t happen. But it did. And now we have to deal with it.”
“In about 6 or 7 months, you’re going to see such a change,” she said. “By the time we start our campaigns in this fall for next fall, you’re going to see a very different picture about the Democrats vis-a-vis Donald Trump.”
Early assessments of Trump’s presidency indicate that Democrats will face significant challenges. For example, a new poll released over the weekend showed that 55% of people now approve of Trump’s job performance.
A poll by the Napolitan News and RMG Research found that 55% of registered voters are happy with Trump’s job, while 43% are unhappy.
According to the data cited by Just the News, the national poll was done with 3,000 registered voters from February 10 to 14. It had a 1.8% margin of error.
A different poll released on Thursday showed that only 48% of people agreed with Trump.
At the same time, big businesses are changing how they approach and fund Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs in a big way.
ast month, Trump sped up this process by signing an executive order that got rid of DEI policies and staff in the federal government and made the ban apply to federal contractors as well.
A few private companies had already started cutting back on DEI projects before Trump took office.
The outlet also said that many companies have started to back out of their DEI commitments—at least symbolically—since he told them to. This is happening even though there haven’t been many real changes inside the companies.