BREAKING: Nancy #Pelosi Says #Biden Should Run Again In 2024—Nancy Pelosi will not be stepping away from Congress anytime soon, she said on Sunday, despite mounting calls from young Democrats for a new generation of elected officials.
The House Speaker was cagey on whether she’d once again run for a leadership role, however, explaining that the decision would depend largely on her family in the wake of a recent break-in of her San Francisco home that left her 82-year-old husband Paul with a skull fracture and other injuries requiring hospitalization.
Democrats’ midterm election performance defied expectations, with President Joe Biden’s party winning the Senate while the House of Representatives – which had long been projected to gain at least 30 GOP seats – is still in play but leaning Republican.
In a pair of Sunday news talk show interviews, Pelosi partially credited Biden for Democrats’ strong performance and gave a full-throated endorsement for the president to run a second term.
‘President Biden has been a great President for our country. He has accomplished so much,’ Pelosi told ABC News’ This Week despite other Democrats having seen the commander-in-chief and his low job approval numbers as an albatross hung around their necks.
On the GOP side, she suggested to CNN’s State of the Union that Republicans’ ‘horrible response’ to her husband Paul’s assault could be partially to blame for turning voters off from their candidates.
Pelosi told the network that Paul was ‘closer to recovery’ each day but that it would be ‘a long haul’ after an intruder who espoused QAnon beliefs online broke into their home late last month and ended up assaulting him with a hammer – all while looking for the Speaker herself, who was not home.
The vast majority of people on both sides of the aisle condemned the attack and wished the Pelosi family well – but fringe voices on the right attempted to cast doubt on the incident and even circulated conspiracy theories about Paul Pelosi’s supposed relationship with the intruder, who he had never met.
Party leaders like House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy also condemned the attack, but earned criticism for staying silent as members of his caucus pushed the harmful conspiracies.
Asked if it had an effect on voters just days before the November 8 Election Day, Pelosi responded: ‘It is a trend in what I’m hearing.’
‘But it wasn’t just the attack. It was the Republican reaction to it, which was disgraceful,’ the Speaker said.
‘The attack is horrible. I mean, imagine what – how I feel, as was the one who was the target, and my husband paying the price, and the traumatic effect on our family.’
She continued, ‘But that trauma is intensified by the ridiculous, disrespectful attitude that the Republicans – and there’s nobody disassociating themselves from the horrible response that they gave to it.’
As of Sunday afternoon, Democrats hold 204 seats in the new Congress and Republicans have 211. A party needs 218 members for a governing majority.
Pelosi would not tell either network where she leans on whether she’ll make a bid for the House Speakership again if Democrats beat the odds to keep her chamber.
‘My decision will then be rooted in what- the wishes of my family and the wishes of my caucus. But none of it will be very much considered until we see what the outcome of all of this is,’ the California Democrat said.
Suggesting she’d given relinquishing the gavel at least some thought, Pelosi added, ‘But there are all kinds of ways to exert influence…speaker has awesome power, but I will always have influence.’
She told ABC News, ‘I’m not making any comments until this election is finished.’
But the speaker clarified later that she intends to remain on Capitol Hill for the forseeable future.
‘Finally, Madam Speaker, if you do decide to step away from Congress, how do you want your speakerships to be remember?’ host Georgie Stephanopoulos asked.
‘Well, I don’t have any plans to step away from Congress. I don’t– you asked me about running for leadership,’ Pelosi said.
‘My flagship issue has, from the start of my being in Congress, has been the climate issue. But in the course of thing, when we had the opportunity to expand health care for all Americans, that has to be my major accomplishment.’
Asked by ABC whether she thinks Biden should run again in 2024, Pelosi answered point-blank: ‘Yes, I do.’
‘He has been a great president and he has a great record to run on,’ Pelosi said.
On CNN, she credited him with helping turn out the votes necessary for narrow victories in key battleground states – while Biden also stayed far clear of others, such as Arizona and Ohio.
‘I do want to salute President Biden for his campaigning, President Obama, all of it raising the urgency of the election and the awareness that people must vote,’ Pelosi said.
‘And that they shouldn’t listen to those who say this is a foregone conclusion because of history, but it’s about the future, and get out there and vote.’
CREDIT: DAILYMAIL.CO.UK
