Joe Biden has admitted that he was pressured to end his re-election campaign by Nancy Pelosi, confirming what many suspected about the ruthless effort to force Biden off the ticket in 2024. 

In an interview with CBS' Sunday Morning, Biden said he feared becoming a "distraction" for Democrats and mentioned Pelosi.

Democrats were in a panic after Biden's disastrous debate with Donald Trump in June. More than three weeks later, Biden's campaign was over.

Biden points to Pelosi

With support from his family, Biden initially resisted pressure to step aside. Pelosi publicly stepped on him in an interview with Morning Joe, where she urged Biden to make a decision.

Of course, Biden had already made a decision to keep running, but it wasn't the decision that Pelosi wanted. In private, Pelosi had warned Biden that he could not beat Trump in November.

“She gave them three weeks of the easy way. It was about to be the hard way," one Democrat told Politico. 

In his comments to CBS, Biden suggested he isn't at peace with how his campaign ended. He claimed his re-election battle was coming "down to the wire" despite the much gloomier assessment of most in his party.

“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,” Biden said.

Pelosi not "impressed"

As Biden's grip on power slipped away, he had lashed out at "elites" in the party whom he accused of circumventing the primary process.

In the end, Democrats showed Biden the door and Kamala Harris - whom Biden endorsed - replaced him without getting a single vote.

Biden and Pelosi have not spoken since he ended his bid. But Pelosi has been quite open about her cold and ruthless calculation of Biden's diminishing prospects, telling the New Yorker that she was "never that impressed" with his political operation.

"They won the White House, bravo," she said.

"My concern was this ain’t happening and we have to make a decision for this to happen and the president has to make the decision for that to happen," she added.