Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi is denying claims that she made phone calls to organize the Democratic coup that ultimately forced President Biden out of the 2024 presidential race.
Pelosi was pressed on her role in the pressure campaign in a Saturday interview with CBS.
“No, I wasn’t the leader of any pressure [campaign],” Pelosi told CBS. “Let me say things that I didn’t do: I didn’t call one person. I did not call one person. I could always say to him, ‘I never called anybody.’”
The former House speaker was told of reports Biden is angry with her over perceived role in short-circuiting his plans for a second term.
“He knows that I love him very much,” she said, declining to talk further on the topic.
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Panic spread through the Democratic Party after Biden’s disastrous performance in a debate against former President Trump in June. What followed was a steady stream of leaks from within the party decrying the former president’s age and mental acuity, as well as lawmakers outright calling for his withdrawal.
During this time, top Democrats all remained publicly aligned with Biden, though they often said he had a tough decision to make.
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“It’s up to the president to decide if he is going to run,” Pelosi told MSNBC at the time. “We’re all encouraging him to make that decision because time is running short. The, I think, overwhelming support of the caucus, it’s not for me to say. I’m not the head of the caucus anymore, but he’s beloved, he is respected, and people want him to make that decision. Not me.”
A number of top Democrats were reportedly moving against Biden at the time, including former President Barack Obama.
Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy claimed that Pelosi and Obama together were responsible for “pulling the strings” behind the effort to oust Biden.
Pelosi also spoke directly with Biden at the time, bluntly informing him that polls showed him losing to Trump and causing a disaster for Democrats in the House.
Biden responded by pushing back, telling her he has seen polls that indicate he can win, one source told CNN.
Another one of the sources described Biden as getting defensive about the polls and that at one point, Pelosi asked Mike Donilon, Biden’s longtime adviser, to get on the line to talk over the data.
A spokesperson for Pelosi’s office declined to comment about the conversation at the time.
