The authors of a new book on the 2024 election revealed that House Speaker Emeritus Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., secretly urged President Joe Biden not to debate then-candidate Donald Trump last year. In an interview with former Politico reporter Tara Palmeri on Monday, journalists Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes shared insights from their book “Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House.” They discussed a hidden conflict between Biden’s team and Democratic Party members leading up to his decision to drop out of the 2024 presidential race.
Among those involved was Pelosi, who reportedly lobbied Biden to avoid the highly anticipated debate against Trump. Biden’s poor, faltering performance during the debate triggered a crisis of confidence among fellow Democrats, ultimately contributing to his withdrawal from the race. “Joe Biden wanted to debate really badly,” Allen said. “He wanted this fight. He relished it. You’ve heard Biden before say things like ‘I want to meet him out behind the schoolyard.’ He really wanted to debate.”
He continued, “Pelosi went to him and tried to play to his ego, saying, ‘You shouldn’t lower yourself, you shouldn’t lower the presidency to Donald Trump.’ Even in her mind, she would say to him, ‘Don’t roll around in the mud.’ Remember, she hates Donald Trump…She kind of lays it on thick with Biden and says, ‘This is going to lower you’ because she knows that might appeal to him.”
Allen suggested that Pelosi probably believed Biden wouldn’t be able to handle a debate against Trump. “If she thought Biden was going to beat Donald Trump in a debate, she would have been telling him to debate,” Allen said.
Parnes also noted that other individuals behind the scenes, including former advisor Anita Dunn, encouraged Biden not to debate. However, she pointed out that the campaign found itself “stuck between a rock and a hard place” as Biden’s poll numbers continued to drop. Fox News Digital reached out to Pelosi’s office for comment but did not receive a response. The outlet also contacted representatives of Biden regarding the claims but did not immediately hear back.
One month before Biden debated Trump in June, Pelosi publicly stated that she would “never recommend” debating Trump, although she considered the debate format “a good one.” After the debate, Pelosi played a significant role in urging Biden to exit the race, believing that his performance had convinced her he couldn’t defeat Trump.
“The key figure in getting Biden to change his mind was Pelosi, who drew on their forty-year friendship. At first, she thought Biden could survive what he described as his ‘bad night.’ But Pelosi is an institutionalist; she loves the House, and her nightmare of not regaining control of that chamber (when Democrats were so close to winning it back) seemed to be coming true,” author Jonathan Alter wrote in his book “American Reckoning: Inside Trump’s Trial—and My Own.”
