Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is defending her role in the decision by former President Joe Biden to withdraw from the 2024 race, admitting that she has yet to speak with the former president or former First Lady Jill Biden.

Biden made history last July by dropping out of the race after mounting pressure from Democratic lawmakers following his disastrous debate performance against now-President Donald Trump.

Pelosi was widely seen as a key figure behind the Democratic effort to push Biden out of the race. Since then, reports suggest tensions between the Bidens and Pelosi have remained strained,

MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell questioned Pelosi about Biden’s insistence—expressed even in the final days of his presidency—that he could have defeated Trump had he not been pressured to step aside.

“Well, all I know is that we won a seat in the house. We did not lose any seats,” Pelosi argued. “You know, people were like, ‘Oh, the Democrats lost!’ No, we did not. I think it would have been quite different with President Biden at the top of the ticket.”
Mitchell noted that Jill Biden expressed she was “disappointed” with Pelosi’s actions during an interview with the Washington Post. In late January, Jill told the Post that Pelosi’s actions had “been on my mind a lot lately,” noting, “We were friends for 50 years. It was disappointing.”