Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca.) does not believe Joe Biden wrote his defiant letter demanding that Democrats rally behind him, saying, it "didn't sound like Joe."
In that letter, Biden said he was "firmly committed" to running for re-election as panic spread through his party following his disastrous June debate with Donald Trump.
Biden sent the letter to his Democratic colleagues on July 8 in an attempt to quell growing dissent within the party.
That same day, Biden called in to Morning Joe and declared, "I'm not going anywhere" as he took a swipe at Democratic "elites" whom he accused of disenfranchising primary voters - an argument since adopted by Republicans who say Biden was overthrown in a "coup."
Many see Pelosi and Barack Obama as the key players in the pressure campaign to get Biden to drop out.
Two days after Biden sent his letter, Pelosi went on Morning Joe and urged Biden to make a decision - even though he had made it clear he intended to keep running. Her comments were seen as giving cover to other Democrats to question Biden.
In an interview with the New York Times, Pelosi made clear how little she thought of Biden's initial decision to keep running.
“I didn’t accept the letter as anything but a letter,” Pelosi said. "It didn’t sound like Joe Biden to me. It really didn’t,” she said.
Explaining her thought process through those three chaotic weeks, Pelosi said she was laser-focused on beating Donald Trump.
“I wanted to see a campaign that could win. Because I had made a decision that I stayed in Congress to defeat what’s-his-name, because I think he is a danger to our country,” Pelosi said.
Less than two weeks after Biden's fiery letter, he called it quits in another letter, shared online. Biden did not publicly address his decision to drop out until three days later, in an Oval Office speech that was vague about his motivations.
In an CBS interview that aired Sunday, Biden suggested that Pelosi had pushed him out to rescue the party's down ballot prospects.
“A number of my Democratic colleagues in the House and Senate thought that I was going to hurt them in the races,” he said.
"And I was concerned if I stayed in the race, that would be the topic — you’d be interviewing me about why did Nancy Pelosi say [something] … and I thought it’d be a real distraction."
