FORMER House Speaker Nancy Pelosi privately told President Joe Biden in a recent conversation that polls show the president cannot beat Donald Trump, suggesting Biden might destroy Democrats’ chances of winning the House in November if he goes ahead with a second term, according to four sources briefed on the call.
The president responded by pushing back, telling Pelosi he had seen polls that showed he might win, one of the people said. Another person described Biden as becoming defensive regarding the polls. At one point, Pelosi asked Mike Donilon, a longtime Biden adviser, to weigh in on the data.
The call would be the second known conversation between the California lawmaker and Biden since the June 27 presidential debate. While the exact date of the conversation is unclear, one source described it as occurring within the past week. Pelosi and Biden also spoke in early July.
No sources have indicated whether Pelosi told Biden in this conversation that she believed the president should drop out of the 2024 race.
Pelosi has spent the weeks since the debate listening to concerns from her colleagues. Pelosi made headlines when she said in an interview last week: “It’s up to the president to decide whether he’s going to run. We’re all encouraging him to make that decision because time is running out.”
When asked for comment, White House spokesman Andrew Bates did not respond to CNN’s report on the recent Pelosi-Biden call. “President Biden is the party’s nominee. He plans to win and looks forward to working with Democrats in Congress to pass his 100-day agenda to help working families,” Bates said.
A Pelosi spokesman told CNN the former House speaker has been in California since Friday and she has not spoken to Biden since then. (CNN/Z-3)
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