Nancy Pelosi urged Biden not to debate Trump in a ‘play to his ego’, book says

The authors of a new book on the 2024 election described House Speaker Emeritus Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., secretly urging President Joe Biden not to debate then-candidate Donald Trump last year.

Reporters Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes spoke to former Politico reporter Tara Palmeri on Monday about several insights from their book “Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House.” They described a secret conflict between Biden’s team and members of the Democratic Party in the lead-up to him dropping out of the 2024 presidential race.

One such person was Pelosi, who reportedly lobbied Biden not to participate in the infamous debate against Trump. Biden’s dismal, halting showing caused a crisis of confidence among fellow Democrats and ultimately led to his exit 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.”

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was allegedly one of multiple people uncertain about President Biden debating Donald Trump. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

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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 Pelosi likely didn’t think Biden could manage 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.

Pelosi reportedly worked behind the scenes to get President Biden to step aside after the debate. (Getty Images)

Parnes added there were other people behind the scenes who encouraged Biden not to debate, such as former advisor Anita Dunn. However, Parnes said the campaign was “stuck between a rock and a hard place” after his poll numbers fell.

Fox News Digital reached out to Pelosi’s office for a comment, but did not immediately hear back. Fox News Digital also reached out to representatives of Biden about the claims, but didn’t immediately hear back. 

One month before Biden debated Trump in June, Pelosi revealed that she would “never recommend” debating Trump but thought the set-up was “a good one.”

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Pelosi was a key figure in pushing Biden out of the race after feeling convinced from the debate that he couldn’t beat Trump.

Authors Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes said the debate happened largely because the Biden campaign was backed into a corner. (Getty Images)

“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.”

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Biden dropped out in July and the party quickly coalesced around Vice President Kamala Harris as the nominee. She went on to lose the general election to Trump in November.