Nancy Pelosi has “never been that impressed” with Joe Biden’s “political operation”, the former US House speaker said, discussing a judgment that helped her conclude the president could not beat Donald Trump and should step aside.
“They won the White House [in 2020]. Bravo. But my concern was: this ain’t happening, and we have to make a decision for [Biden’s withdrawal] to happen,” Pelosi told the New Yorker, in an interview published on Thursday.
On 21 July, in a historic moment, the 81-year-old president finally heeded those who said he was too old to beat Trump and serve a full second term.
Stepping aside as the Democratic nominee, Biden endorsed his 59-year-old vice-president, Kamala Harris, a move that transformed the election, placing Trump under pressure.
Pelosi was widely reported to have played a key role in the switch.
She told the New Yorker: “The president has to make the decision for that to happen. People were calling. I never called one person. I kept true to my word. Any conversation I had, it was just going to be with [Biden]. I never made one call. They said I was burning up the lines, I was talking to Chuck [Schumer, the Democratic Senate majority leader]. I didn’t talk to Chuck at all.
“I never called one person, but people were calling me saying that there was a challenge there. So there had to be a change in the leadership of the campaign, or what would come next.”
Pelosi said her goal was simple: “That Donald Trump would never set foot in the White House again.”
Now 84, Pelosi is in her 19th term in the House. Having been speaker between 2007 and 2011 and 2019 and 2023, she remains vastly influential.
Pelosi spoke to the New Yorker to promote her new memoir, The Art of Power. Last week, the Guardian first reported Pelosi’s descriptions of how she grew increasingly concerned about Trump’s mental fitness for office, even before his defeat by Biden and incitement of the January 6 attack on Congress.
Pelosi told the New Yorker she hoped her role in ending Biden’s presidency would not destroy her relationship with a man three years younger but elected as a senator in 1972, 14 years before Pelosi won her seat in the House.
“I hope so,” she said. “I pray so. I cry so.”
She said she had lost sleep over the situation. Asked if she thought Biden was angry with her, she said: “I don’t know. We haven’t had a conversation. But … ”
Pelosi said she thought Biden was “in a good state”, praising as “masterful” his handling of a large-scale prisoner swap with Russia which concluded last week.
But Biden’s legacy “will go right down the drain if what’s-his-name ever [returns to] the White House”, Pelosi said, adding: “One of the reasons I ran again [in 2022] was to make sure that Donald Trump never stepped foot in the White House again.
“He is a danger to our democracy … he’s a danger to the air our children breathe, the water they drink, their safety in terms of gun-violence prevention. Freedom of choice, the size, the timing of your family – all that.”
Asked if she had met Trump since her time as speaker, Pelosi said she had not.
“Oh, my God, what a horrible thought,” she said. “He knows he’s an impostor. He knows he shouldn’t be president of the United States.”
