Former President Barack Obama was reportedly caught off guard and angered when former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi swiftly endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic Party’s 2024 presidential nominee, just hours after President Joe Biden announced he would not seek re-election.
According to a forthcoming book by ABC News correspondent Jonathan Karl, Pelosi described Harris as “brilliantly astute” and said she had “full confidence” in her ability to defeat then-Republican nominee Donald Trump.
Pelosi’s rapid endorsement came less than 24 hours after Biden’s withdrawal, surprising several senior Democrats, including Obama.
In his new book Retribution, Karl writes that Obama, who had urged senior Democrats to allow “a process” to unfold before backing any successor, was “not happy” with Pelosi’s swift endorsement.
“The Obamas were not happy,” a Pelosi confidant told Karl. “This person summed up Obama’s message to Pelosi as, essentially, ‘What the f*ck did you just do?’”
In excerpts obtained by the Daily Mail and the New York Post, Karl reports that Obama and Pelosi had privately agreed to refrain from making early endorsements and shared concerns about “anointing” Harris without an open primary process.
When Pelosi moved forward with her endorsement, Obama called her directly to express his displeasure, Mediaite reported.
“That train has left the station,” she reportedly fired back, citing Biden’s own quick backing of Harris.
A source close to Obama told Karl that the conversation between the former president and Pelosi amounted to “good-natured ribbing” rather than anger, though a Pelosi ally described Obama as “genuinely irritated.”
During an appearance on MSNBC’s Morning Joe on Tuesday, Karl said Obama’s frustration stemmed from what he described as a “pact” between the two leaders to hold a primary after they had jointly worked to persuade Biden to withdraw from the race.
“So the two of them had been basically working to try to get, you know, Biden out of the race. And they had been and they had been adamant that when he gets out, we need to have some kind of a process, whether it be a mini flash primary something, a meeting of delegates, something, something. And don’t just hand it over to Kamala Harris. And they had had a pact on this,” Karl told the hosts.
“[Harris] gets out and everybody endorses her within hours. You know, [Josh] Shapiro, [Gretchen] Whitmer, Gavin Newsom, they’re all endorsing her within hours. Pelosi actually waits till the next day. But she sees that there’s nothing to hold the tide,” he continued.
“So she puts out the endorsement, gets this phone call. I actually spoke to somebody who overheard the phone call. And what Obama says is basically: ‘Nancy, what was that all about?’ And clearly irritated.”
Karl added: “Now, I’ve spoken to people close to President Obama who say he was just kind of giving her — joshing with her and giving her a hard time. I’ve spoken to another, you know, person who is very close to Pelosi who says, ‘No… he was angry.’ The clear message was, ‘Why did you do that?’”
The former president waited five days before endorsing Harris publicly, a delay that fueled speculation about his doubts regarding her ability to win.
By the time heavyweights from the Clintons to Gavin Newsom had fallen in line, Pelosi had, as Karl writes, “no choice. The only thing she could do was try to help her win the election.”
Trump went on to destroy Harris in the Electoral College while also becoming the first Republican presidential candidate to win the popular vote since George W Bush won it over then-Democratic presidential nominee and Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts.