Pelosi: Those who knew about Biden's decline should have acted

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SACRAMENTO, California — Nancy Pelosi said those close to Joe Biden during his reelection campaign should have shared what they knew about his mental acuity — and confirmed she had private conversations with him about her polling concerns.

“I do think that those who did know should have acted upon that information. Whoever knew,” Pelosi, the former House speaker said at POLITICO’s The California Agenda: Sacramento Summit on Tuesday. “There was staff saying the family knew. The family said the staff.”

Pelosi’s remarks, in an interview with POLITICO’s Jonathan Martin, reflect some of the most detailed reflections she’s shared publicly about the role she played in convincing Biden to not to run for another term. She has long insisted that she didn’t demand Biden drop out of the race, instead urging him to reconsider polling that showed his path against Donald Trump was fraught.

“I only said to President Biden, ‘I’ve come to question the polling that you have and how your campaign is being conducted,” Pelosi said. “Because, at that point, 72 percent of the American people didn’t think he should run.”

The former speaker said she also urged Biden, during their private meeting at the White House, to release a diagnostic test from a doctor to prove to the public that he could “serve the next term.”

“We’re Catholic, we’re prayerful, we had our rosaries and all of that,” Pelosi said. “We had a lovely meeting. It was only the two of us.”

Pelosi recalled her reaction to his disastrous performance during a televised debate with Trump in June 2024. “When you think of the debate and how sad that was, that’s really when we learned,” she said. “I didn’t know, and I think he had his sort of ups and downs.”

Pelosi, who by then was no longer speaker, said she had only seen Biden in person a few times the prior year and hadn’t witnessed his decline.

The former speaker, one of the Democratic Party’s foremost tacticians, also spoke about the upcoming midterm elections, saying she was optimistic that Democrats — who need to pick up three seats to win the House — will have a wave year.

“I’d rather see 10 times that, like 30,” Pelosi quipped. “Thirty is my goal.”

But Pelosi was reluctant to speak about the succession fight for her seat in San Francisco. Pelosi, who’s represented the city in Congress for nearly 40 years, has endorsed city Supervisor Connie Chan and is using her formidable political operation to try to sink Scott Wiener, a prominent state senator.

“I don’t want to talk against anyone,” Pelosi said. “I’m for Connie Chan because I think she will be the best. I know the Congress better than anybody, says she immodestly.”

Pelosi declined to say who she might support for president in 2028, though she said Democrats will have a strong bench. She did, however, speak glowingly about California Gov. Gavin Newsom, her longtime political ally and a likely contender.

“He’s just been remarkable,” Pelosi said. “His intellectual resources he brings to it, his strategic thinking, again his knowledge of issues is so remarkable.”

Pelosi also heaped praise on New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, another potential presidential contender. Pelosi dismissed reports about early tension between the two lawmakers after Ocasio-Cortez was first elected in 2018. Pelosi suggested that tensions were due to staff around the lawmaker — an apparent illusion to Saikat Chakrabarti, Ocasio-Cortez’s former chief of staff who unsuccessfully ran to succeed Pelosi in San Francisco’s primary election.

“I think that she has been so operational, and it’s just wonderful. Wonderful,” Pelosi said of Ocasio-Cortez. “I know it’s a joy to work with her.”

Marisa Guerra Echeverria contributed to this report.