Former US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi claimed that, if President Joe Biden had ended his reelection bid sooner, the Democratic Party could have held a competitive nominating process to choose his replacement.
Pelosi made the claims in an interview with The New York Times.
"Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race. The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary," she said.
Pelosi added that she thought the Democratic candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris, "would have done well in that and been stronger going forward. But we don’t know that. That didn’t happen."
She claimed that since Biden endorsed Harris immediately, "that really made it almost impossible to have a primary at that time. If it had been much earlier, it would have been different."
"I don’t think that any review of the election should be predicated on weaknesses, but strengths of Kamala Harris. She gave people hope. She caused a great deal of excitement in all this," Pelosi told The New York Times.
Biden dropped out of the presidential race in July and endorsed Harris after a poor debate performance against Trump.
Pelosi reportedly was part of a behind-the-scenes effort to pressure Biden to withdraw from the race.