Pelosi says she still hasn’t spoken to Biden since pressuring him to drop out

Ex-House speaker also says on Guardian podcast that she thinks Trump is a grotesque word' and rarely says his name

Nancy Pelosi has admitted she still has not spoken to Joe Biden since her crucial intervention in July led to his decision to drop out of the presidential race, following a disastrously frail performance in a debate against Donald Trump.

The former speaker of the House told the Guardian's Jonathan Freedland on the Politics Weekly America podcast that although she continues to regard the US president as a great friend and longtime political ally, she felt a cold political calculation was necessary after the evidence of Biden's failing mental acuity.