Nagging questions about Joe Biden’s reelection seem poised to continue on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, as former Speaker Nancy Pelosi was decidedly lukewarm in her assessment of the situation to MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
“It’s up to the president to decide if he is going to run,” she said. “We’re all encouraging him to make that decision. Because time is running short.” Asked if she’d like him to continue his reelection bid, the former speaker said merely: “I want him to do whatever he decides to do.”
Pelosi previously expressed “full confidence” in Biden, and she spoke glowingly of his record in office on Wednesday morning.
It briefly seemed like Biden’s team had weathered much of the political storm on Tuesday — Senate Democrats were mum after a ‘family discussion’ on the president’s viability, and no flood of new calls for the incumbent to step aside materialized from the House side.
But Pelosi’s comments come after Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) went public with his private concerns late Tuesday, telling CNN former President Donald Trump could win this fall in a “landslide” and that the Biden White House has done “nothing to really demonstrate that they have a plan to win this election.”
The blunt talk from the usually soft-spoken senator followed notable developments from two New Jersey Democrats: Rep. Mikie Sherrill called for Biden to stand down (the 7th member to publicly do so). And Rep. Andy Kim, the likely next senator from the Garden State, acknowledged lingering “concerns” with Biden as the party’s standard bearer.
What does it all amount to? The questions on Biden’s fitness won’t be going away anytime soon, especially leading up to a Thursday press conference from the president surrounding the NATO summit in Washington.
