What’s New
Democratic strategist Lindy Li said during a Friday appearance on Fox News that President Joe Biden “still has a bone to pick” with Representative Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat.
Newsweek has reached out to the White House and Pelosi’s press team for comment via email on Sunday.
Why It Matters
Li, who is on the Democratic National Committee’s (DNC) finance committee, credited Biden’s recent endorsement of a ban on congressional stock trading—a move that could affect Pelosi, whom she described as “notorious” for it— to his grievances with the former House speaker.
Pelosi was reportedly influential in the behind-the-scenes efforts to encourage Biden to drop out of the 2024 presidential election nearly 100 days prior to the election.
Li said the president is “still very angry that he was summarily pushed aside.”
(AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana/Francis Chung/POLITICO via AP Images
What To Know
Biden discussed a ban during an interview with Faiz Shakir, a political adviser for Senator Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent, released on Tuesday night by the “More Perfect Union” channel on YouTube.
“I think we should be changing the law…at the federal level [so] that nobody in the Congress should be able to make money in the stock market while they’re in the Congress,” Biden said. “I don’t know how you look your constituents in the eye and know, because the job they gave you, gave you an inside track to make more money.”
Li told host Kevin Corke during her appearance on Fox News @ Night that “it took him 50 years to get to that point” as Biden has maintained that members of Congress should determine the rules regarding their ability to trade stocks. Li added that his recent commentary on the matter is because he has a “bone to pick” with Pelosi.
Biden stepped down on July 21, less than a month after a debate with then-Republican nominee Donald Trump. In the debate’s aftermath, many Democratic lawmakers urged the president to step aside. Pelosi never publicly called for Biden to withdraw from the race.
It has been reported that Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer held private meetings with the president on the matter. Sources told the Associated Press in the days leading up to Biden dropping out that Pelosi had warned the president his candidacy could hurt Democrats up and down the ballot in November. Trump ultimately won a second term against Vice President Kamala Harris.
Pelosi and Biden reportedly didn’t speak for nearly three months after he stepped down.
Meanwhile, the congresswoman came under scrutiny in 2022 after her husband, Paul Pelosi, made $5.3 million off Alphabet options before a House panel considered antitrust actions against the Google parent company.
Nancy Pelosi denied at the time accusations that her husband traded on information she gave to him and pointed out that his options were set to expire the same day he exercised them.
The former House speaker, who had an estimated net worth of $114.7 million in 2018, according to Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit OpenSecrets, has previously declined to back a stock trading ban.
“We are a free-market economy. They should be able to participate in that,” she told reporters in December 2021. But in February 2022, she appeared to backtrack on her position, telling reporters: “It’s complicated and members will figure it out. And then we’ll go forward with what the consensus is.”
Li also told Corke that Biden “has not been cognitively fit to assume the duties of the Oval Office for a number of years now, and it breaks my heart to say it. Because I know President Biden and I love the man.”
Concerns over Biden’s age and cognitive capabilities came to the surface during the presidential election.
Li has been critical of her party since Harris’ election loss, which she called a “$1 billion disaster.” Earlier this month, Li broke with her party when defending Trump’s secretary of defense pick, former Fox News host Pete Hegseth.
What Happens Next
Biden’s comments mark his most hardline stance on congressional stock trading during his time in office. His remarks may prompt support for legislation to implement stricter regulations on congressional stock trading, though with his term ending in less than a month, it remains uncertain if any action will follow.