NBC’s Chuck Todd said Wednesday that Democratic California Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s refusal to take a stance on President Joe Biden’s candidacy may be an effort to delay embarrassing him until the NATO summit concludes.
Pelosi, on Wednesday morning, avoided endorsing Biden and advised everyone to hold their tongue about what they want him to do until after the summit, which ends on Thursday. Todd, on “Chris Jansing Reports,” said Pelosi’s remarks must be painful to Biden, adding that she may just be shielding the president from humiliation during the summit by not speaking out against him.
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Biden is hosting the NATO summit in Washington, D.C., as 32 allies convene to decide how to persist in safeguarding “their one billion citizens as the world faces the most dangerous security environment since the Cold War,” particularly the Russia-Ukraine conflict, according to its website.
“I find it fascinating that nobody has taken Joe Biden’s answer earlier this week that he’s staying in the race as definitive. Right? He put out a statement that it’s definitive,” Todd said. “The campaign says, ‘well, he’s already answered this question.’ Former Speaker Pelosi was even reminded of this in the interview this morning with Jonathan, and she just simply plowed forward, right, and said, ‘well, the decision is up to him.’”
Biden called into “Morning Joe” on Monday and said that he is not dropping out from the race, even challenging dissatisfied Democrats to “challenge” him at the party’s August convention.
“So I don’t know how many different ways that Democratic lawmakers can hint that … they don’t like the decision he’s made, they want him to make a different decision,” Todd added. “The question is, ‘who could publicly and/or privately have a lot of influence with him?’ I think the answer is the same person for both questions. And that’s Nancy Pelosi, right?”
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“What she did this morning … if you’re the Bidens and you thought you were making progress here, that had to be really deflating,” he continued. “It was a bit of a twist of the knife. Like, ‘you’re not out of this yet. We’re simply respecting the fact that NATO is in town and we don’t want to humiliate you while NATO’s in town. But watch out for Thursday night and Friday.’”
Pelosi later on Wednesday snapped at a reporter who pressed her for her position on Biden’s candidacy.
“Am I speaking English to you? I’m not going to be making any statements about any of that right now in the hallway,” she said.
CNN senior data reporter Harry Enten said on Wednesday that Biden’s reelection chances are presently slim as he has fallen behind former President Donald Trump in states he must win following their debate.
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“We’ve been talking a lot about the national polls, but of course the race is won or lost in the Electoral College. And I just really want to give an indication here that Donald Trump is favored at this particular point,” Enten told host Jim Acosta. “That’s the bottom line.”
The Cook Political Report on Tuesday updated its projections to change Arizona, Georgia and Nevada from “toss up” states to “lean Republican.” It also modified New Hampshire, Minnesota and Nebraska’s second district from “likely Democrat” to “lean Democrat.”
First published by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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