Nancy Pelosi is denying that she was aware of Joe Biden’s apparent decline while he was president, arguing that anyone who did know about his condition had a responsibility to take action.

In an interview with Politico’s Jonathan Martin, the onetime House speaker repeatedly maintained that she had no knowledge that Biden was experiencing any decline while in office.

“I didn’t know, but I do think that those who did know should have acted upon that information, whatever that means,” Pelosi said.

Pelosi acknowledged that questions remain over who within Biden’s inner circle was aware of his condition and when they became aware of it.

“There was the staff saying the family knew, the family saying the staff knew, I don’t know,” she added, while saying those with knowledge should have acted sooner.

Pelosi and Biden had been at odds over the events surrounding the 2024 presidential campaign, though Pelosi said in March that the two had since spoken.

Pelosi, who was broadly viewed as one of the most influential Democratic figures pushing Biden toward abandoning his 2024 reelection bid, also again rejected claims that she personally told him to leave the race.

She said her conversation with Biden instead focused on polling and concerns about how his campaign was being managed.

“I only said to President Biden, ‘I’ve come to question the polling that you have and how your campaign is being conducted,'” Pelosi said. “I didn’t ask him not to run or anything like that. This is what I asked. ‘I would hope that we could have some other pollsters come in and sit with your pollster and discuss what they hear out there.'”

Pelosi said she also suggested that Biden provide the public with evidence demonstrating that he was capable of serving another term in the White House.

“And I did say this, ‘I think the public would like to hear that you’ve had a testing that demonstrates that you can serve the next [term],'” she added.

Asked by Martin how Biden reacted to that suggestion, Pelosi said he responded that the demands of serving as president effectively tested him every day.

Pelosi described their private discussion as cordial and rooted in their shared Catholic faith, while insisting that reports about what transpired during the meeting did not originate with her.

“He responded. We were prayerful, you know, Catholic. We’re prayerful. We had our rosaries and all that. And we had a lovely meeting. It was only the two of us, except when he put somebody on the phone to talk about the polls. So, whatever people said about it there, didn’t come from me, or maybe it came from somebody in his staff, but none of his staff was really in the room. He said, ‘I get tested every day in what I’m doing and the rest of that.’ I said, ‘I think people want to see something more in that regard.’”

Pelosi’s latest account drew sharp criticism from Fox News political analyst Guy Benson, who characterized her explanation as “non-credible gaslighting.”

Benson argued that Biden’s condition had been readily apparent and accused Pelosi and other Democratic figures of dismissing concerns about his fitness until his disastrous 2024 debate performance made doing so politically untenable.

“Everyone with eyes and ears clocked the former president’s clear decline. The gaslighting denials came from partisan actors who were invested in a political outcome, very much including Pelosi. Once their gaslighting efforts died on that debate stage, they feigned shock at the very reality they’d cynically attacked others for noticing, very much including Pelosi. Because their desired outcome abruptly required turning on Biden, the knives came out. And the sharpest knife may have belonged to Pelosi. She can try to deny this, but it’s just more non-credible gaslighting,” Benson told Fox News Digital in a statement.

Pelosi’s public comments in the aftermath of Biden’s June 2024 debate had fueled speculation that she was seeking to pressure him to reconsider his candidacy. In early July of that year, Biden had publicly insisted that he intended to remain in the presidential race.

Yet during an appearance on “Morning Joe,” Pelosi appeared to leave open the possibility that Biden could still withdraw, describing his candidacy as a decision that had yet to be made.

“It’s up to the president to decide if he is going to run. We are all encouraging him to make that decision, because time is running short,” Pelosi said at the time.