Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had threatened to publicly trash President Biden if he didn’t end his reelection bid — forcing the then-ailing commander in chief into a “come to Jesus” decision to finally call it quits, according to a new report about the final moments of his campaign.
Pelosi sent an urgent message to the 81-year-old president last month while he was still nursing his COVID-19 infection at his Delaware beach house, insiders told the Daily Mail.
Pelosi reportedly threatened to publicly trash her longtime friend and political ally if he continued to ignore thunderous calls to drop out of the 2024 election over fears for his cognitive abilities, four sources close to the campaign told the outlet.
Pelosi threatened to go public with her belief that her fellow Democrat wouldn’t beat the Republican nominee, former President Donald Trump, in a rematch — and threatened to release humiliating polling data to back it up, the sources alleged.
The demand was reportedly forceful enough for Biden to experience a “come to Jesus” moment where he and his staff began drafting the letter that ended his 2024 political campaign, which was released on July 21.
In his first TV interview since removing himself from the race and subsequently backing Vice President Kamala Harris to succeed him, Biden admitted that worried Democrats pushed him out.
“A number of my Democratic colleagues in the House and Senate thought that I was going to hurt them in the races,” Biden told “CBS News Sunday Morning,” before name-dropping Pelosi.
“I was concerned if I stayed in the race, that would be the topic — you’d be interviewing me about why did Nancy Pelosi say [something] … and I thought it’d be a real distraction,” he added before calling himself a “transition president.”
Pelosi, 84, confirmed that she spoke with Biden and fielded calls from worried Democrats, many of whom were disgruntled about their 2024 election odds before he quit the race.
A former Biden senior advisor turned Harris campaign staffer said Pelosi was “absolutely” to blame for ousting the president.
“You know, clearly there were leaders of the party who decided to go ahead and go very public. And that gave permission to other people to go public,” former White House senior adviser on communications Anita Dunn told Politico.
Dunn also blamed the Democratic Party for ignoring the voters, who had voted for Biden in the primaries, calling it “a very donor-driven thing.”
