Pelosi and Others Try a New Tack With Biden: Is That Your Final Answer?

Anger has not worked. Fear has not worked. Panic has not worked. Bluntness has not worked. Sadness has not worked. Concern has not worked.

Elected Democrats and donors have been all over the emotional map this week as they scrutinize the state of President Biden’s viability as a candidate against former President Donald J. Trump, trying everything from directly pleading with him to drop out of the race to freaking out in silence. All of it has only gotten Mr. Biden’s Irish up, as he would say, igniting a stubbornness that is as key to his political brand as resilience.

But on Wednesday, Representative Nancy Pelosi, the former House speaker — and one of the few elected Democrats whose opinion the president actually cares about — tried another tack: She telegraphed not panic but respect, in hopes of appealing to the Joe Biden who has taken a breath and stepped aside in the past — not the Joe Biden who is currently staring down his party, daring Democrats to try to force him away from an office he spent decades pursuing.

“He’s beloved, he is respected, and people want him to make that decision, not me,” Ms. Pelosi said on “Morning Joe,” the president’s favorite news show. “I want him to do whatever he decides to do, and that’s the way it is.”

Ms. Pelosi’s comments, as delicately as they were delivered, were still striking — and indeed stunned several White House officials who were watching her on live television.

Mr. Biden had, after all, already said in a letter on Monday that he was in his final presidential race to win it. Ms. Pelosi’s comments, stressing that “time is running short” for him to make a final decision, made it clear that the discussion was not over.