Pelosi is widely reported to have led the Democrats’ push to oust Biden, who ended up leaving the race at the end of July after weeks of pressure following a poor debate performance against Donald Trump. As Biden ended his campaign, he quickly endorsed Vice-President Kamala Harris to take his place.

During his CNN interview on Friday, Ryan argued that the Democratic Party has "a lot of reasons to be optimistic" despite losing the presidency, pointing to "rising stars and leaders" and the fact that some Democrats, like himself, performed better than expected despite an overall shift toward Republicans.