Pelosi told Biden he’ll lose to Trump and take down House based on polls: report
The walls appear to be closing in on President Biden’s re-election campaign.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., reportedly told President Biden in a phone call that polls are showing he cannot defeat former President Trump in November and that him staying in the race could destroy Democrats’ chances of taking the House in November.
The phone call marked the second time Pelosi and Biden spoke since the president’s disastrous debate performance against Trump on June 27, according to a CNN report Thursday citing four sources briefed on the call. The sources also told CNN that the former speaker did not tell Biden to drop out of the race.
The report came just hours before the Washington Post reported that former President Barack Obama told his allies in recent days that he believes Biden needs to reconsider his candidacy.
In terms of the Pelosi call, Biden responded by pushing back, telling her he has seen polls that indicate he can win, one source told the outlet.
Another one of the sources described Biden as getting defensive about the polls and that at one point, Pelosi asked Mike Donilon, Biden’s longtime adviser, to get on the line to talk over the data.
It is unclear when exactly the call took place, but one CNN source says it was held within the last week. Pelosi and Biden also spoke in early July.
A spokesperson for Pelosi tells Fox News Digital that the congresswoman would not comment on private conversations with the president.
‘Speaker Pelosi respects the confidentiality of her meetings and conversations with the President of the United States. Sadly, the feeding frenzy from the press based on anonymous sources misrepresents any conversations the Speaker may have had with the President,’ the spokesperson said in a statement.
Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for comment but did not immediately receive a response.
Pelosi is a longtime Biden ally. She led House Democrats for the entirety of Biden’s two terms as vice president and served as House speaker for the first two years of his presidency, ushering major pieces of Biden’s agenda through Congress, including the American Rescue Plan and the bipartisan infrastructure law.
In the wake of the debate, Pelosi said she would support whatever the president decided to do, although several reports indicate that she was encouraging lawmakers to continue to put pressure on Biden to reconsider his decision to run for re-election.
Biden has faced mounting calls to step aside since his disastrous debate performance and his campaign has been in disarray ever since. The campaign had believed that the attempted assassination of Trump, in which he sustained a wound to the right ear, had tamped down calls for Biden to step aside.
But on Wednesday, influential Democratic California Rep. Adam Schiff called on Biden to drop out, telling Fox News Digital in a statement that he has ‘serious concerns about whether the President can defeat Donald Trump in November.’
Reuters, citing a top White House source with direct knowledge of the matter, reported earlier Thursday that Pelosi backed Schiff’s call for Biden to drop out of the race, although her office did not address the report when asked by Fox News Digital. Schiff and Pelosi both represent California districts in the House.
‘Nancy is all over this. She doesn’t miss. Schiff wouldn’t move without her approval,’ the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Reuters.
Last week, a number of House Democrats told The Hill that Pelosi was advising members in their conference against rallying to Biden before there is a broader discussion over whether he is the best candidate to defeat Trump.
‘I did have a conversation with her, she is very concerned,’ one House Democratic lawmaker told The Hill. ‘It’s not like she’s like, ‘We’re sticking with this guy.”
Fox News’ Brian Flood and Chris Pandolfo, as well as Reuters contributed to this report.