Pelosi says US should add Biden to Mount Rushmore — despite rumors she angled for his ouster: ‘Such a consequential president’
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says the country should honor President Biden by adding him to Mount Rushmore.
The 81-year-old commander in chief is “such a consequential president of the United States, a Mount Rushmore kind of president,” Rep. Pelosi (D-Calif.), 84, claimed in a clip aired on “CBS Sunday Morning Show.”
“You have Teddy Roosevelt up there. And he’s wonderful. I don’t say take him down. But you can add Biden,” she insisted when pressed about whether the incumbent president is really worthy of the honor of getting his massive mug engraved in rock at the iconic South Dakota national monument alongside former Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Roosevelt.
Biden was born in 1942 — about a year after Mount Rushmore was completed.
Pelosi’s extolling of Biden came as she defended her machinations during the recent Democratic mutiny against the president, who she claimed “was in a good place to make whatever decision – the top of his game” — at the time.
Biden was forced to abandon his reelection bid last month after months of debate over his mental and physical ability to govern — a crisis that was rapidly speeded up by his disastrous debate performance against GOP foe Donald Trump in June.
Former President Trump, 78, has previously suggested he deserves to be on Mount Rushmore, quipping, “Sounds like a good idea to me” when asked about the possibility.
But he denied a report that his administration once reached out to Republican South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem to try to make it happen.
Trump has also likened himself to Lincoln and other iconic presidents as well.
Pelosi’s acclaim of Biden comes even as rumors have swirled that she pulled strings from behind the scenes to help orchestrate his downfall and withdrawal from the 2024 race.
Pelosi, who has a reputation for being a slick political operative, initially backed up Biden after his debate performance but then began to publicly declare he needed to make a decision about reelection — even after he initially made one, saying he was still in.
Two days after Biden even penned a letter to Democratic lawmakers in early July re-affirming that he was “firmly committed” to the race, Pelosi told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” “It’s up to the president to decide if he is going to run.”
Some of her close allies in Congress, such as Reps. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), also joined the chorus of calls for Biden to pass the baton.
There had been a report from CNN that Pelosi firmly told Biden that polls indicated he couldn’t win the Nov. 5 election — and when he suggested polls indicated he could pull it off, she had him put his longtime adviser Mike Donilon on the phone.
But Pelosi on Sunday denied fomenting the revolt against Biden.
“No, I wasn’t the leader of any pressure [campaign],” she said. “Let me say things that I didn’t do: I didn’t call one person. I did not call one person. I could always say to him, ‘I never called anybody.’ ”
When asked about whether she felt Biden needed to step aside, Pelosi insisted she didn’t.
“No. My whole point was whatever he decides, but we have to have a more aggressive campaign,” she said.
“What I’m saying is I had confidence the president would make the proper choice of a country, whatever that would be — and I said that — whatever that is, we’ll go with,” Pelosi claimed.
Biden is rumored to be “furious” with Pelosi over her purported role from behind the scenes during the Democratic revolt against him.
Pelosi, asked Sunday about Biden’s mood toward her, said, “He knows that I love him very much.”
She also stressed that she has “never shared any conversations with the president of the United States publicly.”
Other top Democratic leaders — including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, both of New York — have declined to divulge their conversations with Biden during the mutiny.
Schumer had gone so far as to urge Biden to step aside, ABC reported — a report he has not denied.
