Nancy Pelosi didn’t want a president Joe Biden to step down, the former chair told ABC News Monday morning. What she wanted, she explained, was “a campaign that would win.”
The California Democrat played a key role in her party’s behind-the-scenes campaign to force Biden to end his campaign last month. But in recent days she has denied calling any members as the list of Democratic defectors grows.
“I didn’t ask him to resign. I asked for a campaign that would win,” the former speaker said Monday on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” “And I didn’t see that coming.”
The 84-year-old San Francisco lawmaker remains a powerful force in her party even after she gave up her role in Democratic leadership at the start of this Congress. But she insisted Monday that the only decision she made on the 2024 Democratic ticket was up to the president himself.
“People said I was setting the airwaves on fire. No, I wasn’t. The only person I talked to about this was the president,” Pelosi said. “Other people called me to ask what their opinion was about it, but I rarely called back, let alone initiated one myself.”
Pelosi spoke with at least one House Democrat about district-level polling and appeared to believe Biden should drop out of the race, POLITICO reported last month. She offered to talk to other members who reached out to her, the lawmaker said, though she said she would not initiate those conversations.
“You make a decision to win, and you make every decision in favor of winning,” Pelosi said Monday, adding that “the most important decision” in that electoral calculus “is the nominee.”
Pelosi said her own decision to leave party leadership had made it “easier” to broach the subject with Biden. Pelosi is now on a press tour promoting her new book and has repeatedly praised the president.
“We just wanted him to make the decision on how best to preserve that legacy,” Pelosi said Monday. “And also — win.”
