President Joe Biden’s letter last month — which declared his intention to stay in the 2024 presidential race — “didn’t sound like” him, according to House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).

In the letter, which was sent to congressional Democrats after a fumbling debate performance that stirred a crisis of confidence in his electability, Biden insisted he would not drop out to honor the will of the more than 14 million primary voters who backed him. However, Biden later did step aside as his allies kept up the pressure, paving the way for Vice President Kamala Harris to take his place leading the ticket.

“I didn’t accept the letter as anything but a letter,” Pelosi said during an interview with Ezra Klein on his podcast for The New York Times. “I mean, there are some people who are unhappy with the letter. Let me say it differently. Some said that some people were unhappy with the letter. I’ll put it in somebody else’s mouth. It didn’t sound like Joe Biden to me. It really didn’t.”

The letter came up as Klein asked Pelosi about her much-discussed appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that followed in which the former speaker emphasized she would support whatever decision Biden made about his political future — even though the president was insisting at the time he would not leave the race.

“I wanted to see a campaign that could win. Because I had made a decision that I stayed in Congress to defeat what’s his name, because I think he is a danger to our country,” Pelosi said, alluding to former President Donald Trump.

Pelosi suggested that she wanted to use her “Morning Joe” appearance “to say, ‘Stop saying things,'” because leaders of NATO were converging in Washington, D.C., that week.

“If you have something to say, save it for later, until they’re gone,” Pelosi added. “Because this is a big deal — the summit of NATO, which he has strengthened, grown, and now is hosting. And they’re doing great things, and he’s the center of it all. Save your comments for later.”

The New Yorker editor David Remnick noted in a recent interview with Pelosi that people around the former speaker said her “Morning Joe” appearance gave them “space” to call on Biden to step aside. Pelosi said she has “never been that impressed” with Biden’s political operation” during that conversation, just days after suggesting Biden’s face should be added to Mount Rushmore.

When Biden did announce he was exiting the race, he did so with another letter. At the time, the White House had said he had tested positive for COVID-19 and was socially distancing while recovering in Delaware. Biden, 81, addressed the public from the White House a couple days later, saying it was time for “younger voices” to lead.

CNN reported Pelosi had also told Biden in private that polls showed he could not defeat Trump and warned the president he could hurt other Democrats in down-ticket races if he did not bow out. In recent days, Pelosi said she had not spoken to Biden since he dropped out. Journalist Lesley Stahl even told Pelosi it had been said that Biden was “furious” with her, ostensibly for not having the president’s back.

In a new interview with CBS, Biden singled out Pelosi by name as he talked about why he ended his re-election bid. In explaining one of his reasons, Biden said, “a number of my Democratic colleagues in the House and Senate thought that I was gonna 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…’ ‘Why did so-and-so…’ And I thought it’d be a real distraction.”

On the latest “Sunday Special” episode, Daily Wire Editor Emeritus Ben Shapiro talked with Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, who warned that the proliferation of complex laws and regulations is threatening Americans’ freedoms and undermining trust in government institutions.

Gorsuch told Shapiro that the U.S. Code has doubled in length since 1980, with Congress adding 2-3 million new words to federal laws annually. He noted that federal agencies have also been prolific, with conservative estimates putting the number of federal crimes buried in regulations at 300,000.

“And, of course, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Our federal agencies have been busy, too. There are so many federal crimes now buried in those regulations adopted by agencies, not necessarily by Congress, that nobody knows how many there are,” he said.

WATCH THE FULL ‘SUNDAY SPECIAL’ INTERVIEW WITH NEIL GORSUCH

Gorsuch emphasized the human toll of regulatory overreach, citing examples like a magician who had to obtain a federal license for his rabbit and create a 28-page disaster preparedness plan. He argued that excessive regulation undermines trust in government institutions and disproportionately impacts ordinary Americans trying to comply with complex laws.

“Most people have no idea what the law actually is,” Gorsuch added. “You can hire a lawyer and if you’re rich enough, then maybe you’re able to navigate the laws. If you’re not rich, then you’re probably screwed, depending on how tightly regulated any particular segment is.” 

The justice expressed hope for bipartisan solutions, highlighting state-level efforts to eliminate unnecessary regulations. He pointed to the deregulation of the airline industry in the 1970s as an example of successful reform at the federal level. Gorsuch also stressed the importance of civic education, stating that “a third of Americans can’t name the three branches of government, let alone why we have them.”

Shapiro chimed in, stating, “When you look at sort of the history of the development of this giant bureaucracy, the amount of rulemaking you trace this this dramatic increase to sort of the latter half of the 20th century. But its roots lie in Wilsonian administrative state theories. And really that comes from German progressivism.” 

“The original checks and balances of the Constitution were largely designed to prevent things from getting done in the absence of a large-scale approval of the things, the American public really had to be nearly unanimous in a lot of ways in order to get big things done,” Shapiro added. “And by the time we got to the early 20th century, Woodrow Wilson famously — and Teddy Roosevelt too — really believed that now the federal government had become unworkable; it just was not able to get the things done that it needed to get done. And so the idea was governance from above by experts who could thwart the checks and balances that were creating such obstruction.” 

The discussion between the Daily Wire host and Justice Gorsuch highlights growing concerns about regulatory overreach and its impact on everyday Americans. Gorsuch’s warnings come at a time of heightened debate over the proper role and scope of government regulation.

At the federal level, Gorsuch noted that both Republican and Democratic administrations have undertaken deregulatory initiatives in recent years. The Supreme Court has shown a willingness to reconsider longstanding doctrines that give agencies broad latitude in interpreting and enforcing regulations. In June, the high court, with the help of Gorsuch, overturned the “Chevron deference” doctrine, which had required courts to defer to agencies’ reasonable interpretations of ambiguous statutes.