Washington
CNN
—
First lady Jill Biden expressed her disappointment with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in a new interview with The Washington Post, providing rare public comments on the fractured relationship between her husband, Joe Biden, and Pelosi following the departure of the president of the 2024 race.
“We were friends for 50 years“, the first lady said in an interview with the Washington Post published Wednesday. “It was disappointing.”
Pelosi was among the leading Democrats to express reservations about Joe Biden’s ability to defeat Donald Trump in November after the president’s interrupted debate in June. While Biden remained adamant about remaining in the race, Pelosi made waves in an interview by opening the door to the possibility that he would end his campaign.
“It’s up to the president to decide whether he runs or not.” We all encourage him to make this decision because time is of the essence,” Pelosi said on MSNBC in July.
In the lengthy interview, the First Lady also publicly revealed her conversation with Trump during the reopening of Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris last month.
“I had a good meeting with your husband in the Oval Office,” the president-elect said, according to the first lady. “Yes,” she replied, “because you two talk.”
Asked why she would engage with Trump after the bitterness of the campaign, she replied: “Joe and I respect our institutions, our traditions. »
“It’s very important to me that they continue and we…” she continued. “What would be the point of being mean?”
The interview provides a rare glimpse into how the first family is navigating the end of the Biden presidency, including the summer weeks in which Democrats privately and publicly pushed her husband to drop out of the race.
“Let’s just say I was disappointed with the way this turned out,” Jill Biden said. “I learned a lot about human nature.”
Pelosi privately told President Biden in July that polls showed he could not defeat Trump and could hurt Democrats’ chances of winning the House in November if he remained in the race, CNN previously reported . A source with direct knowledge described Biden as “seething” at Pelosi at the time.
After Trump’s victory in November, Pelosi blamed the Democrats’ defeat on Biden. “If the president had withdrawn earlier, there might have been other candidates in the race,” the California Democrat said in an interview with a New York Times podcast.
It is unclear whether Joe Biden and Pelosi have spoken since July.
The first lady said she still believes her husband could have served an additional four years — although she recently said that may not have been the case.
“Of course,” she said, “I mean, today I think he has a busy schedule. He started early with interviews and briefings, and it’s still going.
The first lady expressed concern that the president is not recognized for some of his accomplishments, including infrastructure investments. But she also acknowledged the complicated dynamic of her husband pardoning their son Hunter in the final weeks of his presidency.
“Joe really struggled with this decision,” Jill Biden said. “I mean, we started – he started at the point where he said he wasn’t going to forgive Hunter. But then I think things changed. Circumstances changed and it became clear that the Republicans were not going to stop.”
As her work at the White House draws to a close, the first lady said, “I hope women see me as a reflection of themselves.” You know, a mother, a grandmother, a worker, a sister, a friend.
“I hope they remember Joe as a strong and empathetic president with integrity and character,” she said. “I mean, character really is everything, right?”