Hindsight 2024: Pelosi questions Biden's handling of Harris endorsement

What she's saying: "Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race," Pelosi said on "The Interview" podcast. "The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary."

• "I think [Harris] 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."

The latest: Pelosi's office shared additional audio from the interview, which has yet to be released in full, in which Pelosi praises Harris for running a strong campaign and giving people "hope."

• She also says she believes Harris would have won an open primary if one were held.

The intrigue: Pelosi was one of the most influential members of a quiet movement to push Biden out of the race after his disastrous debate in June.

• She told the Guardian last month that she hadn't spoken to Biden since, and that some in his orbit "haven't forgiven" her. She defended her efforts to move the party onto a "better course" with a new nominee, while also praising Biden's accomplishments.
• The White House did not offer on-record comment for this story.

Flashback: Within 24 hours of Biden bowing out in July, as the momentum swung behind Harris as the nominee, Pelosi offered the VP her "enthusiastic support."

• In the lead-up to Biden's bombshell, though, Democratic elites had been debating whether to rally behind Harris or to hold some kind of "mini primary," possibly including the likes of Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, California Gov. Gavin Newsom or Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro.
• Most senior Democrats found that idea too risky, and none (including Pelosi) challenged Harris for the nomination or criticized Biden for his endorsement.

Pelosi is now arguing that the Democrats would have been better off if Biden left more time for the party to settle on its candidate, even if it still ultimately chose Harris.

Between the lines: If Pelosi had those concerns in real time, she didn't raise them publicly. She also called for Biden to run in 2024 before he entered the race.

What to watch: Pelosi weighed in on another hot topic in the party's post-election soul searching: why working class voters went so overwhelmingly for Trump.

• Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said the party had "abandoned the working class" before it abandoned them.
• Pelosi rejected Sanders' analysis and said the issue was culture, not policies. "Guns, God and gays — that's the way they say it," she told the Times. "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."

Editor's note: This story was updated after Pelosi's office shared audio from the NYT interview with Axios.

Go deeper:

• Deep Democratic depression
• Harris, Biden camps blame each other for loss