House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said Thursday she’s not paying attention to Hillary Rodham Clinton’s tumble in the polls, but doubted it is related to the email scandal that appears to have fed into doubts about the former first lady’s trustworthiness.
Mrs. Pelosi, a California Democrat who is the highest-ranking elected woman in the country, said she is eager to relinquish that title to a female president, but said she’s also happy with the field of candidates, and said Sen. Bernard Sanders, an independent who is running against Mrs. Clinton for Democrats’ presidential nomination, is talking about the issues House Democrats are highlighting.
Mrs. Clinton has seen giant poll leads evaporate and now trails Mr. Sanders in polling in both Iowa and New Hampshire, which host the first two nomination contests.
“I don’t stipulate to the fact it’s about emails. Who knows what it could be about? It could be about another candidate moving forward,” Mrs. Pelosi told reporters at her weekly press conference.
She said she’s not following presidential politics too closely as she battles over policies in Congress — “I’m a busy person. We’re trying to save the world with the Iran agreement,” she said — but said the race appears to have gone from a referendum on Mrs. Clinton to a contest between multiple candidates, so it is not surprising her poll numbers have dropped.
She also said she found it interesting that Vice President Joseph R. Biden, who has said he is trying to decide whether to join the race, hasn’t spoken to her about making a run — “and I speak to him quite a bit,” she said.
On the question of Mrs. Clinton’s emails, Mrs. Pelosi said she has never doubted Mrs. Clinton’s assertion that she didn’t send or receive classified information from the email account and server she kept at her home in New York.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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