The untold story of how Nancy Pelosi forced Biden to quit with a brutal phone call and humiliating ultimatum that ruined 50 years of friendship… and has left Jill and Joe furious

The exact circumstances that led to President Joe Biden’s dramatic withdrawal from the 2024 election race have been the subject of heated debate for weeks.

Since Biden posted his digitally signed letter on Twitter on Sunday, June 21, announcing the decision, the message from the White House has been clear: the president was not pushed. This was his own choice.

Sympathetic insiders described it as a weekend of “reflection” for the president, who recently tested positive for COVID and was isolating with his wife, Jill, and a handful of trusted aides at the Biden family home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.

On Saturday night, and after weeks of pushing for his second chance, something “shifted,” Biden insiders said. The president asked his closest advisers to start drafting his letter. Suddenly, it was over.

That may well be true. But these insiders have consistently left out a crucial piece of the puzzle that explains why Biden’s thinking changed so quickly, which the Mail can now exclusively reveal for the first time.

As Biden nursed his COVID infection that fateful Saturday, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sent an urgent message to the president: She was prepared to publicly express her concerns that he would not be able to defeat Donald Trump in November.

The ultimatum was clear: leave the party now, or Pelosi will destroy her political ally and friend of more than 50 years on the world stage.

Four sources with intimate knowledge of the situation independently claimed that such a message was being delivered. One particularly well-placed source said there had been a phone call in which Pelosi told Biden she would release brazen poll numbers to back up her attack.

In any case, her demand was so compelling that it gave the president a “moment of reflection.” Only then did he begin drafting the letter announcing his withdrawal.

Both Pelosi’s office and the White House officially denied that the two spoke on the phone.

The shocking revelation comes as the public spat between Pelosi and Biden — who have not spoken since he announced his withdrawal — continues to intensify.

Now that her new memoir is on sale, Pelosi is making the interview rounds, trying to dodge questions about her strained relationship with the president.

On Sunday, August 4, CBS anchor Lesley Stahl interviewed the former speaker.

‘There are many reports that you were the leader of a pressure campaign [to convince Biden to step aside]’ asked Stahl.

‘No, I was not the leader of any pressure [campaign]”, Pelosi responded. “Let me say things I didn’t do: I didn’t call one person.”

In an interview with The New Yorker magazine last week, Pelosi admitted she couldn’t sleep over the rift with the president and that she was “praying” their friendship would survive.

“He knows I love him,” she told CNN last Thursday.

Biden is still angry about the way things turned out.

“He was not happy with the way things were going because there were calls for him to leave, but he is not spending time thinking about that,” a source said.

It wasn’t just Pelosi, by the way, who increased pressure on Biden to withdraw in the days and weeks following his disastrous TV debate with Trump.

Other party leaders, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, told Biden they no longer considered his candidacy viable.

Schumer visited Biden in Delaware a week before his withdrawal. Insiders described the meeting as “blunt.”

Jeffries had also pressed the president over the declining poll numbers in recent days, but it was the manner in which Pelosi delivered the final blow that has apparently left Biden embittered.

In the hours after announcing he was withdrawing from the race, Biden personally reached out to congressional leaders and other allies to discuss his decision.

Schumer was on the list of those who received a presidential call. Pelosi was not.

Both longtime Washington fixtures, Biden, 81, and Pelosi, 84, have known each other since the 1970s. Pelosi would be especially pleased to share an early story about Biden’s kindness.

Shortly after she was first elected to Congress in 1987, she took a trip to Rehoboth Beach with her family, where Biden invited her to a party to introduce her to several Democratic donors.

But there was a problem: American golf legend Nancy Lopez had been in the news that summer, and some of Biden’s friends confused his guest with the famous athlete. Pelosi did not correct them.

The pair subsequently formed a close political alliance.

Both are Catholic Democrats and say they were both inspired to enter government service by President John F. Kennedy, who, like them, carried a rosary in his pocket.

When Biden was vice president, Pelosi became Speaker of the House, and together they worked to pass the landmark Obamacare legislation.

And when Pelosi’s husband Paul was attacked in their San Francisco home by a hammer-wielding madman in 2022, it was Biden who called her in the early morning to comfort her.

“He was so pious, kind and thoughtful,” Pelosi writes in her new memoir.

All of which makes it easy to understand why her decision to impeach him had such a profound impact on Biden.

Next week, the party will officially leave the president behind.

Kamala Harris will be crowned the nominee at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. But Biden won’t be there to pass the torch.

Instead, he will briefly address the crowd on Monday evening, when many of the party’s major players have not yet arrived, before quickly leaving town, leaving Harris to hold court for the rest of the week.

Biden is now focused on “consolidating his legacy,” an insider said.

On Tuesday, he and the First Lady traveled to New Orleans to promote their new “Biden Cancer Moonshot” initiative, awarding $150 million to eight different research projects across the country.

But there was also an undertone of dissatisfaction during the journey.

As Biden left the White House to begin his trip to the Southern city, he stopped to answer a few questions from reporters. Behind him, Jill stood watching, her arms crossed and a frown on her forehead.

It betrayed a First Lady who remains deeply concerned about her husband’s dignity, who wishes he could have withdrawn from the 2024 race at his own pace and on his own terms.

Jill is also known to hold grudges. She and Biden’s son Hunter are reportedly furious with Pelosi for what they see as a betrayal.

And as Biden trudges off into the sunset, it’s hard to imagine that Pelosi’s continued tight grip on Capitol Hill will do anything to assuage that resentment.