The exact circumstances that led to President Joe Biden’s dramatic withdrawal from the 2024 election race have been the topic of frenzied conversation for weeks.
Ever since Biden tweeted his digitally signed letter announcing the decision on Sunday, June 21, the line from the White House has been clear: The president was not pushed. This was his choice alone.
Sympathetic insiders described a weekend of ‘reflection’ for the president – who had recently tested postive for COVID and was holed up in isolation with his wife Jill and a handful of trusted aides at the Biden family home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.
On the Saturday night, and after weeks of insisting that he would run again, something ‘shifted’, the Biden insiders said. The president asked his closest advisors to begin drafting his letter. Suddenly, it was all over.
That much may be true. But these insiders have continually left out a crucial piece of the puzzle that explains why Biden’s thinking changed so rapidly and which the Mail can now exclusively reveal for the first time.
As Biden nursed his COVID infection that fateful Saturday, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sent an urgent message to the president: She was prepared to go public with her concerns that he could not defeat Donald Trump in November.
The ultimatum was clear: Drop out now – or Pelosi trashes her political ally, and friend of over 50 years, on the global stage.
Four sources with intimate knowledge of the situation independently claimed that such a message was relayed, with one particularly well-placed source saying that a phone call took place in which Pelosi told Biden she would publish brutal polling figures to back up her attack.
Either way, her demand was said to be so forceful that it sparked a ‘come to Jesus moment’ for the president, who only then began to draft the letter announcing his withdrawal.
Both Pelosi’s office and the White House officially denied that the pair spoke on the phone.
This bombshell revelation comes as the public fallout between Pelosi and Biden – who haven’t spoken since he announced his withdrawal – grows increasingly ugly.
With her new memoir on sale, Pelosi has been doing the interview rounds, struggling to dodge questions about her strained relationship with the president.
On Sunday August 4, CBS anchor Lesley Stahl pressed the former speaker.
‘It’s been very well-reported that you were the leader of a pressure campaign [to convince Biden to step aside]?’ Stahl asked.
‘No, I wasn’t the leader of any pressure [campaign],’ Pelosi replied. ‘Let me say things that I didn’t do: I didn’t call one person.’
Then, in an interview with the New Yorker magazine last week, Pelosi admitted she was losing sleep over her rift with the president, that she was ‘praying’ their friendship could survive.
‘He knows I love him,’ she told CNN last Thursday.
For his part, Biden remains angry with how things transpired.
‘He was unhappy with how things went as there were calls for him to exit, but he is not spending time ruminating about that,’ a source said.
Indeed, it wasn’t just Pelosi who piled pressure on Biden to withdraw in the days and weeks following his disastrous TV debate with Trump.
Other party bigwigs, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, told Biden they no longer thought his candidacy was viable.
Schumer went to see Biden in Delaware a week before his withdrawal, with insiders describing the meeting as ‘blunt’.
Jeffries had also pressed the president on tanking poll numbers in recent days – but it was the way in which Pelosi delivered the final blow that has apparently left Biden feeling bitter.
In the hours after he announced he was exiting the race, Biden personally called Congressional leaders and other allies to talk about his decision.
Schumer was on the list of those who got a presidential call. Pelosi wasn’t.
Both long-time creatures of the Washington scene, Biden, 81, and Pelosi, 84, have known each other since the 1970s – with Pelosi said to particularly enjoy recounting an early tale of Biden’s kindness.
Soon after she was first elected to Congress in 1987, she took a family trip to Rehoboth Beach, where Biden then invited her to a party to help introduce her to various Democratic donor.
But there was a problem: American golfing legend Nancy Lopez had been in the news that summer and some of Biden’s friends confused his guest with the famous athlete. Pelosi did not correct them.
The pair went on to form a firm political alliance.
Both Catholic Democrats, they each say they were inspired to go into public service by President John F. Kennedy – who, like them, carried rosary beads in his pocket.
When Biden served as Vice President, Pelosi became House Speaker, and they worked in tandem to pass landmark Obamacare legislation.
And in 2022, when Pelosi’s husband Paul was attacked by a hammer-wielding madman in their San Francisco home, it was Biden who called in the early morning to help comfort her.
‘He was so prayerful, kind and thoughtful,’ Pelosi writes in her new memoir.
All of which makes it easy to understand why her move to oust him has cut so deeply for Biden.
Next week, the party will officially leave the president behind.
Kamala Harris will be crowned as the nominee at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. But Biden won’t be there to pass the torch.
Instead, he’ll briefly address the crowd on Monday night, when many of the party’s big players will not yet have arrived, before swiftly leaving town and allowing Harris to hold court for the rest of the week.
Biden’s focus now is on ‘cementing his legacy’, one insider said.
On Tuesday, he and the First Lady travelled to New Orleans, touting their new ‘Biden Cancer Moonshot’ initiative and awarding $150 million to eight different research projects across the country.
But there was an undercurrent of discontent during the trip.
Heading out of the White House to begin his journey to the southern city, Biden stopped to take a few questions from reporters. Behind him, Jill stood watching, arms crossed and with a frown painted on her forehead.
It betrayed a First Lady who remains deeply worried about her husband’s dignity, who wishes he’d been allowed to bow out of the 2024 race in his own time and on his own terms.
Jill is also known to hold a grudge – and she and Biden’s son Hunter are reportedly furious with Pelosi over what they see as a betrayal.
And now, as Biden shuffles off into the sunset, it’s hard to imagine that Pelosi’s continued firm grasp on Capitol Hill power will do anything to ease those grudges.