Pelosi refuses to say she supports Biden as the Democratic nominee

• Nancy Pelosi refused to explicitly endorse President Joe Biden as the party's presidential nominee.
• Pelosi also suggested that Biden has not made up his mind about whether to stay in the race, despite Biden's repeated insistence that he will not drop out and that his decision is final.
• Biden is busy with the NATO Summit this week, where he faces an added pressure to show Democrats that he is fit enough to beat Trump in November.

Former Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday refused to explicitly endorse President Joe Biden as the party's presidential nominee, and encouraged her colleagues in Congress to pause from making public statements either for or against Biden.

"Let's just hold off. Whatever you're thinking, either tell somebody privately, but you don't have to put that out on the table until we see how we go this week," Pelosi said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe."

The comments were notable because Biden has repeatedly insisted he will not drop out of the race against former President Donald Trump, and said that his decision is final.

Pelosi's carefully worded comments suggested that she believes Biden is still deciding whether or not to remain atop the ticket.

"It's up to the president to decide if he is going to run," Pelosi said. "We're all encouraging him to make that decision because time is running short."

Pelosi has long been one of Biden's closest allies in Congress, so her refusal to support Biden as the nominee — as scores of Democrats already have — sent ripples across the Capitol Wednesday.

Pelosi's remarks came two weeks into Biden's wall-to-wall push to prove to Democrats and voters that his halting, feeble debate performance on Jun 27 was just "an episode," as Pelosi put it last week, and not