Pelosi says Biden should have dropped out earlier so there could be a primary: 'It would have been different'

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., pointed the finger at President Biden for not dropping out of the race earlier in an election post-mortem with The New York Times on Thursday.

Pelosi told host Lulu Garcia-Navarro on the Times' "The Interview" podcast, "Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race." 

As the former speaker told it, "The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary." Pelosi had been a key player in pushing Biden out after his infamous debate performance.

Instead, within an hour of announcing he was stepping aside on July 21, Biden endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris. Less than 36 hours later, she announced she had locked up the nomination, getting commitments of backing from a majority of Democratic National Committee delegates.

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"And as I say, Kamala may have, I think she would have done well in [a primary] and been stronger going forward. But we don’t know that. That didn’t happen. We live with what happened," Pelosi told the Times. "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."

Fox News Digital reached out to Biden and the Harris campaign for comment.

Pelosi had insisted multiple times after Harris secured the nomination that there had been an open process but nobody else had put their hat in the ring to seize the opportunity.

"Many of us who were concerned about the election wanted to have an open process. It was an open process, anyone could have gotten in," Pelosi said during an interview with The Wall Street Journal in August.

"[Harris] had the endorsement of the president, and she, politically astutely, took advantage of it and shut down — not shut down, but won the nomination. But anybody else could have gotten in," Pelosi continued. 

She reiterated those comments on "The View" in September and added, "I was one of the earlier endorsers of any of the leaders, right? Within 24 hours."

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Pressed again that month, Pelosi expressed satisfaction that it had happened so quickly.

"No, I didn't change my mind. We had an open primary and [Harris] won it. Nobody else got in the race," Pelosi said. "Yes people could have jumped in — there were some people who were sort of preparing, but she just took off with it, and actually it was a blessing because there was not that much time between then and the election and it sort of saved time."

The "Interview" podcast with Pelosi will be released Saturday.