Pelosi punts on Biden discussions until after NATO summit

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is telling Democrats to wait until after the NATO summit to continue discussion on whether President Joe Biden should step aside from the campaign.

Biden is hosting the NATO summit in Washington, D.C., in celebration of the alliance’s 75th anniversary, and Pelosi, who has not called on the president to step aside, argued on MSNBC’s Morning Joe that Democratic Party discussions about the president’s candidacy should be halted until after the summit has concluded.

“I want him to do whatever he decides to do, and that’s the way it is. Whatever he decides to go with, I think it’s really important, and I would hope everyone would join in to let him deal with this NATO conference. This is a very big deal,” Pelosi said while discussing the significance of the meeting this week in the nation’s capital.

“And I’ve said everyone, let’s let’s just hold off whatever you’re thinking. Either tell somebody privately, but you don’t have to put that out on the table until we see how we go this week,” Pelosi added.

Biden has been adamant he has no plans to step aside. And Pelosi didn’t give a clear answer about whether she believes he should. But she made it clear that if it was going to happen, it needs to be sooner rather than later.

“It’s up to the president to decide if he is going to run. We’re all encouraging him to make that decision,” she said. “Because time is running short.”

The NATO summit is scheduled to go through Thursday, with the president set to hold a rare solo press conference on the final day of the event. The news conference will come two weeks after his disastrous debate performance, which has heightened concerns over his age and mental acuity.

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Since the Atlanta debate on June 27, Democrats have been discussing whether to call on Biden to step aside in favor of a different candidate at the top of the presidential ticket as Biden falls further behind former President Donald Trump in the polls.

Nearly a dozen House Democrats have called on Biden to step aside, but no Senate Democrats have publicly called on the president to do so. Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO) did warn on Tuesday that Democrats could be headed for sweeping losses based on the current trajectory of Biden’s candidacy.