Joe Biden's recent withdrawal from the 2024 presidential race left voters with numerous questions, particularly given the strange and abrupt manner in which it occurred.
However, it has since emerged that the president's decision to abandon his re-election bid was influenced heavily by the strong-arm tactics employed by his longtime friend and political ally, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, as the New York Post reports.
Citing sources who spoke to the Daily Mail, the Post indicated that in a last-ditch bid to force the hand of Biden, who had continued to rebuff those inside his party who wanted him to step aside, Pelosi determined that a game of hardball was in order.
According to those sources, Pelosi let Biden know that if he did not walk away from his hopes of another term in the White House, she would take matters into her own hands and go public with damning assertions about his prospects.
Biden, who was then convalescing in Delaware after a COVID-19 diagnosis, received a message from the so-called Speaker Emerita suggesting that the time had come for him to leave the political stage in terms of the 2024 election.
Specifically, Pelosi is said to have informed Biden that she was prepared to make public her own belief that he had little chance of defeating former President Donald Trump at the ballot box, suggesting that she had plentiful -- and embarrassing -- polling data to support that claim.
The ensuing deliberations in which Biden engaged were likened by the insiders as something of a “come to Jesus” moment after which the wheels were put in motion to facilitate his withdrawal announcement.
Though Pelosi and other top Democratic Party leaders have attempted to downplay their role in Biden's decision, the president himself recently all but acknowledged the truth of the account provided to the Mail.
During a recent interview with CBS News Sunday Morning, Biden stated, “A number of my Democratic colleagues in the House and Senate thought that I was going to hurt them in the races.”
“I was concerned if I stayed in the race, that would be the topic – you'd be interviewing me about why did Nancy Pelosi say [something]...and I thought it'd be a real distraction,” Biden continued.
Former high-level Biden adviser Anita Dunn offered her take on the situation saying that pressure from Pelosi absolutely drove the decision, saying, “You know clearly there were leaders of the party who decided to go ahead and go very public. And that gave permission to other people to go public.”
Despite her role in what some have likened to a coup against Biden, Pelosi remains hopeful that no hard feelings will remain, recently declaring, “In our family, we have three generations of love for Joe Biden.”
The president, for his part, may not be so keen to mend fences anytime soon, however, as Fox News reports, with insiders suggesting that he remains bitter towards Pelosi as well as former President Barack Obama and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, all individuals he believes had a hand in his forced departure from the campaign.
Though there are plans in place to honor Biden at this week's Democratic National Convention in Chicago, and the president himself will deliver a speech on Monday, he is not expected to linger long after that, steering clear of those he blames for the “ruthless” treatment he received from those he once considered friends.
