President Joe Biden is frustrated that Barack Obama wouldn’t tell him to his face that he should leave the race. He’s angry with Nancy Pelosi and views her as ruthless for ushering him out the door. And he’s still miffed at the role Chuck Schumer played, too.
Biden has told his closest aides and associates that he is coming to terms with his decision to bow out of the presidential race last month, but still harbors some frustration toward the members of his own party he believes pushed him out, according to three people familiar with Biden’s thinking who are not authorized to speak publicly about private conversations.
Pelosi has been at the forefront of late, as the former speaker is on an extensive book tour and has been publicly explaining her part in nudging Biden off the top of the ticket. The president is still smarting but has told people in recent days that he grudgingly respects Pelosi’s actions.
“She did what she had to do” in order to give Democrats the best chance to win in November, Biden told one of the people, adding that Pelosi “cares about the party,” not about feelings.
The lingering tension between Democratic leaders underscores the historic tumult that has gripped their party in the last six weeks — contrasting with the unity Democrats hope to present at their convention next week. Biden’s faltering debate performance in late June convinced Pelosi that he could not win and she helped orchestrate an unprecedented mutiny against not only a sitting president of her own party, but also someone who had been a friend for decades.
A senior White House official, also granted anonymity to describe private conversations, said Biden views Pelosi as “ruthless” and willing to set aside long-term relationships in order to keep her party in power — and, most importantly, to prevent Republican nominee Donald Trump from returning to the White House.
“That’s who she has always been,” the person added.
Pelosi and Biden have not spoken since he stepped away. And the president’s anger flashed to the surface during a televised interview that aired this weekend when he namechecked the former speaker as he explained why he quit the race.
“And I was concerned if I stayed in the race, that would be the topic,” Biden told CBS. “You’d be interviewing me about why did Nancy Pelosi say, why did so — and — and I thought it’d be a real distraction.”
Biden also harbors some resentment that Obama — his friend and former boss — did not call him directly to voice his concerns about the campaign in the aftermath of the disastrous Atlanta debate in late June.
While Obama tweeted in support of Biden immediately after the debate, he then went publicly quiet. The former president did not try to stir up a movement to dislodge Biden from the top of the ticket, but he also didn’t quell one, much to the dismay of some of those closest to Biden, according to the three people.
Biden’s relationship with the former president has always been more complicated than it appears. The two men are personally close — Obama even offered to pay Biden’s mortgage after his son Beau’s death in 2015 — but political tensions have formed.
Biden has long thought that Obama’s staff looked down upon him and the president’s aides still bristle when Obama allies like David Axelrod or the Pod Save America cast criticize the incumbent. Many people around Biden were rankled when, in 2016, Obama made clear he favored Hillary Clinton to succeed him and not his own vice president.
But Biden’s inner circle believes Pelosi was the decisive voice in pushing him out.
His allies thought that, after nearly two weeks of trying to reassure fellow Democrats, his candidacy was on track to be salvaged the morning of July 10. But that was when Pelosi made a now-infamous appearance on “Morning Joe,” repeatedly making clear that she did not support Biden continuing his candidacy. The president’s aides believe that opened the door for a host of other Democrats and donors to follow suit.
Moreover, Biden’s inner circle told him the day before he dropped out that if he persisted in the race they believed that Pelosi was going to take her misgivings public — including her belief that Trump would defeat him — which would have been deeply humiliating for a sitting president, two of the people said.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Monday said that Biden “respects” Pelosi and insisted that he has “no hard feelings.”
Some White House senior aides also expressed private irritation after Pelosi, in an interview last week with The New Yorker, said she was unimpressed with the Biden political operation despite its 2020 victory.
Pelosi has repeatedly said in recent interviews — mainly to promote her new book titled “The Art of Power” — that she didn’t call anyone but the president in the three weeks prior to Biden’s departure from the race. However, Pelosi took calls from rank-and-file Democrats who sought her advice in the days following Biden’s debate performance and before he dropped out of the race, multiple people familiar with her conversations told POLITICO at the time.
Pelosi has since publicly and privately praised the new Democratic ticket of Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, which has surged in the polls and revitalized their party. Still, in an interview with former White House press secretary Jen Psaki for her show on MSNBC, Pelosi defended her relationship with the president.
“In our family, we have three generations of love for Joe Biden. My husband and I — of course, we’ve known him for a very long time — respect him, love him and Jill. He and Jill are so remarkable, and their family. Our kids have always loved them. I had pictures with him from our children growing up and now our grandchildren growing up,” she said.
During her book tour, Pelosi has also been publicly pushing for Biden to be added to Mount Rushmore, which many Democrats privately indicate they see as her attempt to make amends.
Some Democrats privately muse that as Pelosi worked behind the scenes to have Biden step aside, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries was able to stay above the fray within his caucus as rank-and-file members shared their concerns about the top of the ticket.
After Trump defeated Clinton in 2016, Pelosi became her party’s bulwark against the marauding president, and she spent two years repeatedly standing up to him and, at times, taunting him. She’s widely seen as the leader who held down the fort against Trump, many Democrats say, until their party’s primary process began ahead of the 2020 race. And she has maintained her outsized influence even after stepping away from leading her caucus.
In another interview earlier this month, Pelosi said “I hope so” when asked if her relationship with Biden is OK.
“You’d have to ask him,” Pelosi told CNN’s Dana Bash.
While Biden and Pelosi remain estranged, the president did speak to Schumer on the day he dropped out, according to a person familiar with the phone call. Biden has expressed less frustration with Schumer, whom he does not perceive as someone at the forefront of the move to dislodge him. Still, he was miffed that the leader of the Senate — an institution he reveres — also played a hand in applying pressure, according to two of the people.
“President Biden is a patriot and set an example for all Americans by once again putting his country above all else,” Schumer said in a statement in response to a request for comment on this story. “We were all proud to work alongside him to achieve an historic legislative record that will leave him with an indelible legacy as president.”
