Inside the Dem Grannies Spat Lighting Up Washington

East Coast-West Coast feud is like Biggie vs. Tupac for liberal white women

It’s an East Coast-West Coast feud for the age: Biggie vs. Tupac for liberal old white ladies. So, who ya got?

Anita Dunn, one of the Democratic Party’s most powerful figures on the East Coast, took a swipe this week at Nancy Pelosi, the West Coast boss and iron-fisted former speaker of the House who many believe played a key role in killing President Joe Biden’s career by forcing him to end his reelection bid.

Pelosi said Thursday she had “never been that impressed” with Biden’s political operation, an unmistakable attack on Dunn, who worked on Biden’s 2020 campaign and as a senior White House aide. Dunn fired back on Friday with a not-so-subtle critique of Pelosi’s own political operation.

“The task in front of us is to win this election and to not let Donald Trump become president again and to win the House of Representatives, which had certain leaders in 2022 done a slightly better job, maybe we would control today, but we don’t,” Dunn told Politico in reference to then-House speaker Pelosi’s failure to retain Democratic control of the lower chamber in the midterm elections.

Pelosi’s remarks came a day earlier in an interview with the New Yorker, during which the former speaker explained her dissatisfaction with Biden and his prospects for reelection. “I’ve never been that impressed with his political operation. They won the White House. Bravo. But my concern was: this ain’t happening, and we have to make a decision for this to happen,” Pelosi said.

While insisting that stepping down as the Democratic nominee was entirely Biden’s call, Pelosi has publicly said she was “startled” by the octogenarian president’s performance in his June 27 debate with Republican nominee Donald Trump and that she had “never” seen him in such an alarming state.

Pelosi urged Biden to make a decision on his reelection bid shortly after the debate, even though Biden had repeatedly said he would not withdraw from the race. “It’s up to the President to decide if he’s going to run,” Pelosi said after Biden had repeatedly insisted he was. “We’re all encouraging him to make that decision, because time is running short.”

Dunn, who became Biden’s senior adviser when he took office, stepped down on July 31 to serve as a senior adviser to Harris’s PAC, Future Forward and Future Forward USA Action. History suggests that neither Dunn nor Pelosi are particularly confident in Harris’s political talents. In 2021, Dunn offered a vague non-denial in a Politico article about dysfunction in the vice president’s office. Pelosi has been publicly supportive of Harris, but “never said anything particularly nice” about the vice president before she became the 2024 nominee, a Harris supporter told Politico. There was considerable backlash among Democrats in California, where Pelosi reigns supreme, when Biden was looking for a running mate in 2020.

The two powerful liberal grannies might not see eye-to-eye on everything, but they might actually get along if they focused on what unites them, such as the massive fortunes they acquired in politics. Dunn has a net worth approaching $50 million, whereas Pelosi has amassed nearly $250 million thanks to her unique talent for trading stocks.

The old ladies are also prominent defenders of sexual predators. Dunn gave “damage control” advice to Hollywood rapist Harvey Weinstein, while Pelosi continued to praise Rep. John Conyers (D., Mich.) amid reports that he “repeatedly made sexual advances to female staff.”