(Daily Mail) 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.
The president – who had recently tested postive for COVID – was holed up in isolatoion with his wife Jill and a handful of trusted aides at the Biden family home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware .(Pictured: Arriving in Delaware on July 17).
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.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (pictured) 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.
