CLEARLY Pelosi told him during their call what time it was and exactly what would happen if Joe stayed in the race.

Yes. She told him that he would lose.

That's not like a kidnapping victim not having a choice to pay the ransom or not. She's not threatening force or bodily harm. She's not threatening anything. She basically told him that his debate performance was so bad that he would not be able to pull it out - the polls were terrible, her members couldn't support him, and the donors were going to invest in other races rather than back a losing cause.

Biden always had the choice to remain in the race, and nothing bad would have happened to him. He would have simply lost, and would have been (unavoidably) blamed for that loss. He didn't want that to happen, so he withdrew. He blew his own election chances with his debate performance, and there was no coming back from it - so rather than saddle his party with the loss, he bowed out.

Not a coup. Again, I understand why the GOP needs to get their voters to believe that - but it's just not true.