A glum-looking Nancy Pelosi avoided The Post’s questions Wednesday about her role in swapping in Kamala Harris for President Biden as the 2024 Democratic nominee — after getting in a tense discussion with ex-Democratic National Committee chair Donna Brazile ahead of the vice president’s concession speech at Howard University.
“Do you think it was a mistake to kick Joe Biden off the ballot?” The Post inquired as the former House speaker left the event.
The 84-year-old Pelosi, who was elected Tuesday to a 20th term representing her San Francisco-based district in the House, ignored all inquiries — including one about whether she expected to run again in 2026.
Current Democratic National Committee chair Jaime Harrison and ex-DNC boss Tom Perez also declined to answer questions.
Ahead of Harris’ speech to supporters, Pelosi was also caught on camera apparently arguing with Brazile.
Footage of the exchange shows Washington, DC, Mayor Muriel Bowser standing between the two and shaking her head as Pelosi speaks urgently and points her finger.
“Come on,” Bowser can be seen saying, according to an analysis of the on-video lip movements. “Please … please.”
Jeremy Freeman, a London-based forensic lip reader who was born deaf and for 16 years has served as a University College London-certified expert witness for litigants, shared the analysis with The Post.
Brazile posted on X Thursday morning that any speculation about the two having a disagreement was false.
“Such stupidity,” she said. “Speaker Pelosi and I were discussing all of the outstanding House races to be called or the path to a ‘House Majority.’ Folks, this is the Trump era: lies, disinformation and gossip. What happened to the USA?”
A spokesperson for Bowser declined to comment.
As a member of the DNC rules committee, Brazile tried to lock in Biden’s nomination with a virtual delegate vote days before the president suspended his campaign July 21.
Pelosi’s husband, Paul, and daughter Christine, a Democratic strategist, were also present at Howard, with the latter posting a video on her X a little more than an hour after her mother’s exchange with Brazile circulated online.
“Thank you, Kamala,” Christine Pelosi said in the eight-second clip as she nuzzled up next to Brazile and the two briefly forced a smile.
Weeks before Election Day, the California Democrat had telegraphed supreme confidence that Harris, 60, would win the presidency.
“Elections are decisions,” Pelosi told the Guardian. “You decide to win.”
“I decided a while ago that [former President] Donald Trump will never set foot in the White House again as president of the United States or in any other capacity,” she added.
“So when you make a decision, you have to make every decision in favor of winning … and the most important decision of all is the candidate.”
Harris lost to Trump in an Electoral College blowout, with major networks calling the contest in the early hours of Wednesday in the Republican’s favor.
“There is no singular reason why we lost, but a big reason is because the [Barack] Obama advisers publicly encouraged Democratic infighting to push Joe Biden out, didn’t even want Kamala Harris as the nominee, and then signed up as the saviors of the campaign only to run outdated Obama-era playbooks for a candidate that wasn’t Obama,” a Biden ally told Jewish Insider editor in chief Josh Kraushaar.
Biden dropped out and endorsed Harris only following a pressure campaign from Pelosi and other congressional Democrats, as well as deep-pocketed donors like Hollywood star George Clooney.
The president called out Pelosi by name in an Aug. 11 interview on “CBS News Sunday Morning,” saying that her comments on his candidacy would have been “a real distraction” if he’d stayed in the race.
“A number of my Democratic colleagues in the House and Senate thought that I was going to hurt them in the races,” the president 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.”
Pelosi acknowledged to the Guardian in mid-October that she had not spoken with Biden since his exit.
“There may be some people around him who haven’t forgiven me for my role,” she added.
The longtime House Democratic leader reportedly threatened to release internal polling data showing the president he had no path to victory after his disastrous debate performance against Trump, 78, on June 27.
Biden spoke haltingly — and at times incoherently — in a raspy voice while on stage at the CNN showdown between the two major-party candidates.
“I really don’t know what he said at the end of that sentence,” Trump fired back in a highly clipped response to Biden’s answer on his administration’s border policies, before taking a dig at the oldest-ever president: “And I don’t think he knows what he said, either.”
Harris, much like 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, delayed her concession speech until Wednesday afternoon, nearly 24 hours after the polls closed.
“While I concede this election, I do not concede the fight that fueled this campaign,” the veep said in a brief, 11-minute speech.
Hundreds had turned out the night before at the campaign watch party on Howard’s Yard with high hopes of seeing her confirmed as the first female president.
In a statement posted on X late Wednesday afternoon, Biden stood by his decision to pick Harris as his 2020 running mate.
“As I’ve said before, selecting Kamala was the very first decision I made when I became the nominee for president in 2020,” he said. “It was the best decision I made.”
