Nancy Pelosi Blasts Biden Allies Who Hid His Decline While Claiming She Was Startled

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is now criticizing unnamed allies of former President Joe Biden who, she says, knew about concerns surrounding his condition before the 2024 election campaign reached its breaking point, as reported by The New York Post.

Pelosi, 86, a California Democrat, made the remarks Tuesday at Politico’s “The California Agenda: Sacramento Summit,” where she discussed Biden’s final months in office and the Democratic Party’s decision to replace him as its presidential nominee.

Pelosi said those who were aware of Biden’s problems “should have acted upon that information” sooner.

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At the same time, she maintained that she personally did not understand the extent of the former president’s difficulties until his disastrous June 27, 2024, debate against then-candidate Donald Trump.

“I do think that those who did know should have acted upon that information. Whoever knew,” she said. “There was staff saying the family knew. The family said the staff.”

Pelosi said she rarely saw Biden in person after Democrats lost control of the House in the 2022 midterm elections. According to her account, the June 2024 debate was when the seriousness of Biden’s condition became apparent to her.

“When you think of the debate and how sad that was, that’s really when we learned,” Pelosi told Politico correspondent Jonathan Martin. “I didn’t know, and I think he had his sort of ups and downs.”

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Her comments, however, come amid earlier accounts suggesting Pelosi had concerns about Biden before the debate.

Author Chris Whipple wrote in his 2025 book, Uncharted, that Pelosi told a friend she was “startled by how much the president had aged” when Biden presented her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom during a White House ceremony in May 2024.

“He was not the same Joe Biden,” Whipple quoted Pelosi as saying.

That account stands alongside public statements Pelosi made shortly afterward defending Biden.

In June 2024, the Wall Street Journal published a report more than three weeks before the presidential debate detailing concerns from more than 45 Republican and Democratic lawmakers and staffers.

Those individuals described Biden as speaking so softly during meetings that participants sometimes struggled to understand him. Some also said he appeared unfamiliar with policies and relied on aides to answer questions.

Pelosi responded to the Journal report on June 5, 2024, calling it a “hit piece” and saying it “ignored testimony by Democrats” while focusing on criticism from Republicans.

The debate dramatically changed the political situation. Biden’s performance against Trump prompted widespread concern among Democrats and eventually led to a revolt inside the party over his candidacy.

Pelosi also pushed back Tuesday against accounts portraying her as the central figure who forced Biden out of the presidential race.

“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% of the American people didn’t think he should run.”

She said she encouraged Biden to undergo some form of cognitive examination and make the results public to reassure voters that he could “serve the next term.”

Pelosi has previously denied directly telling Biden to withdraw and has also denied making calls to Democratic lawmakers who later urged him to abandon his reelection campaign.

Her public position became increasingly difficult to ignore, however, after a July 10, 2024, appearance on “Morning Joe.” Asked whether Biden should remain in the race, Pelosi declined to give him an outright endorsement.

“It’s up to the president to decide if he is going to run. We’re all encouraging him to make that decision because time is running short,” she said at the time.

Pelosi and Biden, both longtime Catholic Democrats, have since maintained a strained relationship following the Democratic effort that ultimately ended Biden’s campaign.

Biden later announced that he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer that had spread to his bones. Former First Lady Jill Biden subsequently said she would not have advised her husband to seek a second term.

Pelosi’s latest comments again raise questions about what senior Democrats knew about Biden’s condition, when they knew it, and why voters were not given a clearer picture before the 2024 election.

For Democrats who spent much of the campaign insisting concerns about Biden were exaggerated, that remains an uncomfortable question.

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