By New York Post (Politics) | Created at 2024-10-16 22:44:25 | Updated at 2024-10-17 01:55:27
3 hours ago
It may not have just been the funeral that put a sullen look on President Biden’s face.
Seated just down the pew from him at Ethel Kennedy’s funeral service Wednesday was former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), with whom he hadn’t spoken in almost three months.
Pelosi, 84, was spotted walking behind Biden, 81, who had his back turned to her while taking his spot in the pew next to former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.
At one point, she got up to eulogize the late 96-year-old Kennedy matriarch. As she stood and walked in front of the president, he gazed ahead and had his hand over his mouth. Pelosi then acknowledged the three presidents in attendance.
“Mr. President, Mr. President, Mr. President,” Pelosi bellowed out at one point during her speech. “How perfect for Ethel to have three great presidents speak.”
Obama, 63, appeared to smile, but Biden looked blankly at Pelosi.
Biden did however clap after Pelosi wrapped up her remarks and said of Ethel Kennedy, “May she rest in peace.”
There has long been speculation of friction between Biden and Pelosi over the Democratic revolt against him that culminated in him bowing out of the 2024 presidential race.
Pelosi never publicly called on Biden to step aside during the Democratic mutiny against him that ensued following his fumbling debate performance against former President Donald Trump in late June.
However, she reportedly threatened to go public with concerns he couldn’t prevail in the 2024 contest. She also reportedly had tough talks with him in which she was adamant that he was not on a trajectory to prevail.
“My call was just to: ‘Let’s get on a better course. He will make the decision as to what that is.’ And he made that decision. But I think he has some unease because we’ve been friends for decades,” Pelosi recently told The Guardian’s Politics Weekly America podcast.
Two days after Biden publicly declared he was “firmly committed” to sticking it out, the famously slick, longtime former party leader went on national television and strongly implied it was still an open question.
Many observers noted that some of Pelosi’s closest allies in Congress such as Reps. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) joined the revolt and asked Biden to throw in the towel.
Biden has publicly insisted that “No one influenced my decision, no one knew it was coming” but conceded that the internal pressure was a “distraction.”
“A number of my Democratic colleagues in the House and Senate thought that I was going to hurt them in the races. And I was concerned if I stayed in the race, that would be the topic — you’d be interviewing me about why did Nancy Pelosi say [something] … and I thought it’d be a real distraction,” he later reflected to “CBS News Sunday Morning” on Aug. 11.
Pelosi acknowledged during her interview on the podcast that dropped Tuesday that she hadn’t spoken with Biden since the mutiny.
When asked if she believes Biden has forgiven her, Pelosi paused and candidly replied, “There may be some people around him who haven’t forgiven me for my role.”
“I have the greatest respect for him. I think he’s one of the great consequential presidents of our country,” Pelosi stressed. “I think his legacy had to be protected. I didn’t see that happening in the course that it was on, the election was on.”
During the frostiness between the two octogenarian Catholic Democrats, Pelosi went on television and buttered Biden up with praise, lauding him as a “consequential” president who deserves a spot on Mount Rushmore.
That overture appears to have done little to mend fences between the two.
It is not entirely clear if Biden and Pelosi broke the ice and spoke during their joint appearance at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle.
Biden was also seen having a spirited exchange with Obama at one point, though it’s not entirely clear what the two said to each other.
Ethel Kennedy had died from complications caused by a stroke on Oct. 10, according to her family.
