Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in portions of a New York Times podcast interview published Friday, blamed Vice President Kamala Harris' election loss on President Joe Biden's late exit from the presidential race and the lack of Democratic primary.
Pelosi told Lulu Garcia-Navarro, a host of "The Interview," that "had the president [Biden] gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race," the paper said in a story about the Thursday interview. The exchange won't be posted in full until Saturday.
MORE: Bernie Sanders blasts Democratic Party following Kamala Harris loss"The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary," Pelosi said.
"And as I say, Kamala may have, I think she would have done well in that and been stronger going forward. But we don't know that. That didn't happen. We live with what happened. And because the president endorsed Kamala 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," she added.
MORE: More voters saw Trump as the candidate of change: Exit poll analysisAs ABC News has reported, Pelosi worked behind the scenes to urge Biden to drop out of the presidential race following his performance at CNN's debate.
Back in November 2022, when ABC "This Week" co-anchor George Stephanopoulos asked Pelosi, "do you think President Biden should run again?" she answered, "Yes, I do. I mean President Biden has been a great president for our country. He has accomplished so much."
MORE: Harris campaign leadership urges staffers not to speak with reporters: SourcesThe Times reported Pelosi also took issue with Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders saying, after Harris' loss, that "It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them."
"Bernie Sanders has not won," she said. "With all due respect, and I have a great deal of respect for him, for what he stands for, but I don't respect him saying that the Democratic Party has abandoned the working-class families."
The paper reported she suggested that cultural issues were more to blame for Democrats' losses among working-class voters.
"Guns, God and gays — that's the way they say it," she reportedly said. "Guns, that's an issue; gays, that's an issue, and now they're making the trans issue such an important issue in their priorities; and in certain communities, what they call God, what we call a woman's right to choose."