The Democratic Party's coronation of Kamala Harris as their 2024 presidential nominee wasn't the smooth, unified effort they wanted the public to believe. Behind closed doors, it was pure chaos, with Barack Obama furious at Nancy Pelosi for moving too fast and essentially backing Kamala’s anointing before anyone else had a shot at it.
When Joe Biden finally bowed out of the race in July 2024, Nancy Pelosi wasted almost no time throwing her support behind Kamala. Less than a day after Biden's announcement, Pelosi was all in on Harris. The problem? According to excerpts from Jonathan Karl’s forthcoming book, Retribution, revealed by The Daily Mail, Pelosi and Obama had supposedly agreed not to make immediate endorsements. The plan was to let the process play out, give other potential candidates a chance, and avoid just handing the nomination to Harris on a silver platter. Obama wanted an open process, not a coronation, and he definitely didn't want the then-vice president steamrolling her way to the top of the ticket without any real competition.
So when Pelosi broke ranks and endorsed Kamala anyway, Obama was livid, to say the least, according to Karl’s book:
The former president wanted to know what had happened. Why had Pelosi issued a statement endorsing Harris so soon? Hadn't he and Pelosi agreed days earlier that party leaders anointing the vice president as Biden’s replacement would be a mistake?
According to sources close to the situation, Obama called Pelosi, and, as a confidant summed it up, his reaction was, "What the f—k did you just do?" That's not exactly the tone of a guy who's thrilled with how things are going. Obama clearly wanted to play kingmaker here — past reports suggested he wanted Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) to be the nominee — and Pelosi completely cut him out of the equation. His grand vision of orchestrating the selection process went up in smoke because she pulled the trigger first.
Pelosi's response to Obama's outburst was essentially to tell him to pound sand.
"That train has left the station," she told him, pointing to the fact that Biden had already endorsed Kamala himself. Once Biden threw his weight behind her, the floodgates opened. The Clintons jumped on board. Pelosi felt she had no choice but to follow suit or risk being left behind while the rest of the party rallied around Kamala.
Related: We Got New Juicy Details About the Obama-Biden Feud Last Year
And that’s what makes this so hilarious. Biden's endorsement of Kamala wasn't some heartfelt gesture of faith in her abilities or leadership. Past reports have suggested it was his revenge on the party that forced him out. He knew they didn't want Kamala, and he gave them Kamala anyway. It was a final middle finger to the Democratic establishment that pushed him aside after years of loyalty.
Obama's concerns about Kamala weren't unfounded, either. He reportedly doubted she could beat Donald Trump in the general election, which might be the smartest observation he's ever made.
A senior Biden adviser, who also worked in the Obama White House, told Karl that the real reason Obama didn't want Pelosi to endorse Harris so quickly was that the former president didn't think the vice president could win.
'There's only one Black Jesus,' the senior Biden adviser quipped.
Someone even closer to Pelosi was also surprised by the former House Speaker's decision: Pelosi's own husband.
'Kamala?' Paul Pelosi asked his wife, Karl reported.
'Don't start with me,' Nancy Pelosi replied in a conversation shortly after her endorsement of the vice president became public.
Pelosi had never been a big Harris fan and had privately told Biden in 2020 that she had reservations about him picking her fellow Californian as his running mate.
Even Pelosi's own husband was blindsided by her endorsement. When she told him she was backing Harris, his response was a simple "Kamala?" She shut him down immediately with "Don't start with me." That tells you everything you need to know about how much internal support there really was for Harris at the top of the Democratic food chain.
Some insiders say Obama’s call to Pelosi afterward was just friendly teasing, but others insist it reflected real frustration over what he saw as a breach of trust. Either way, it’s obvious he wasn’t thrilled about being blindsided. The deeper issue, though, was that Joe Biden had boxed them all in. No one in the Democratic establishment really wanted Kamala as the nominee, but thanks to Biden’s hurt feelings, that’s exactly what they got — and the rest is history.
Editor’s Note: The Schumer Shutdown is still ongoing, and polls show that Americans are increasingly blaming the Democrats for this mess, but we can’t let them spin their way out of it.
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