President Joe Biden on Sunday dropped out of the 2024 presidential race and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee, bowing to weeks of mounting pressure from members of his own party to abandon his re-election bid against former President Donald Trump.
“It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your President,” Biden wrote in a post on social networking site X.
“And while it has been my intention to seek re-election, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country that I step down and focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term,” Biden said. He wrote.
“I will be speaking to the Nation later this week in more detail about my decision,” wrote Biden, whose bombshell decision came after a sharp increase in recent days in the number of congressional Democrats who have publicly called on him to resign over another candidate.
Biden in a subsequent tweet wrote that “his first decision as the party’s nominee in 2020 was to select Kamala Harris as my VP.”
“And it was the best decision I ever made. Today I want to offer my full support and endorsement to Kamala to be our party’s nominee this year. Democrats – it’s time to come together and defeat Trump,” Biden wrote.
“Let’s do it.”
Harris said in a statement: “I am honored to have the support of the President and it is my intention to win and win this nomination.”
Former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in a joint statement from the Democratic power couple, said: “We are honored to join the President in supporting Vice President Harris, and we will do everything we can to support her.”
Biden, who has been self-isolating at his beach home in Rehoboth, Delaware, after being diagnosed with Covid-19, and Harris spoke on Sunday before he announced he would drop out of the race.
NBC News reported that Biden at 1:45 p.m. ET on Sunday told his senior campaign team that he had changed his mind about staying in the contest.
In a campaign staff call Sunday night, Biden campaign co-chair Jen O’Malley Dillon urged staffers to rally behind their new candidate and said their jobs would be safely transferred to the campaign Harris, three sources familiar with the call told NBC. News.
He also acknowledged the emotional weight of the moment: “It’s okay to grieve, it’s okay to be uncertain but also hopeful about our path forward.”
Trump in a phone interview with NBC News said of Biden’s decision: “He should never have been there in the first place.”
“He should have stayed in his basement,” said Trump, who was formally nominated as the Republican Party nominee last week, days after narrowly avoiding being killed in an assassination attempt at a Pennsylvania campaign rally on July 13.
Democratic National Committee Chairman Jamie Harrison said in a statement: “In the coming days, the Party will undertake a transparent and orderly process to move forward as a unified Democratic Party with a candidate who can defeat Donald Trump in November.”
“This process will be governed by established Party rules and procedures. Our representatives are prepared to take seriously their responsibility to quickly deliver a nominee to the American people,” Harrison said.
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris holds a campaign rally at Westover High School in Fayetteville, North Carolina, U.S., July 18, 2024.
Kevin Mohatt | Reuters
Biden’s move echoes the decision by another Democratic incumbent, President Lyndon Johnson, to drop out of the 1968 election as he faced turmoil over the Vietnam War, low approval ratings and a surprisingly strong performance by Senator Eugene McCarthy in his primary. New Hampshire.
Biden’s campaign for weeks insisted he would remain in the race, despite growing concern after a disastrous debate with Trump in late June that he was too old and weak to compete with the former president and serve a full second term if re-elected.
As of Sunday, nearly 40 Democratic members of Congress had urged Biden to drop out. Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who recently switched his political affiliation from Democrat to independent, earlier Sunday publicly called for Biden to drop out of the race.
US President Joe Biden attends a NATO event celebrating the alliance’s 75th anniversary, in Washington, US, July 9, 2024.
Yves Herman | Reuters
Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the California Democrat who previously served as speaker of the House of Representatives, tweeted Sunday: “President Joe Biden is a patriotic American who has always put our country first.”
“His legacy of vision, values and leadership make him one of the most influential Presidents in American history,” Pelosi wrote. “With love and gratitude to President Biden for always believing in the promise of America and giving people the opportunity to achieve their fulfillment. God has blessed America with the greatness and goodness of Joe Biden.
Biden’s decision to abandon the strikes opens up the presidential race less than four months before Election Day.
It also poses great questions and challenges for the Democratic Party, which must now scramble to assemble a new presidential ticket.
The next candidate will have to compete against the Republican ticket of Trump and Sen. JD Vance, win over donors, delegates and other allies who have been loyal to the establishment — all while convincing voters of their worth for the nation’s highest office .
The Biden campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Biden began bleeding support from his own party and allies after his June 27 debate against Trump.
While only three years older than Trump, Biden looked and sounded much worse on the debate stage. He displayed a stiff posture and sometimes a blank stare and often gave answers that were gruff, vague and ineffective.
In both substance and appearance, Biden contrasted sharply with Trump, who looked and sounded the same as he had in recent years.
The debate immediately sparked a crisis among Democrats. Even before it was over, party officials were raising doubts about whether Biden could campaign effectively against Trump.
High-profile Democratic donors and supporters have openly urged Biden to drop out, with some vowing to withhold campaign contributions in the meantime.
Biden and his aides spent weeks trying to stop the bleeding.
In his first post-debate interview, Biden said he was convinced he was the best person to take on Trump, adding that he could be persuaded to resign “if the Lord Almighty comes out and tells me so.”
But as his decisive stance failed to quell unrest in his party, Biden suggested he could move to withdraw in other ways.
In an interview with BET that aired Wednesday during the Republican National Convention, Biden said he might reconsider his decision to stay in the race “if I had a medical condition that came up.”
On the same day the interview was scheduled to air, Biden tested positive for Covid. He canceled a scheduled appearance in Las Vegas and returned to his beach home in Delaware.
Biden is already the oldest person to ever serve in the White House.
He would be 86 at the end of a second term. He had outdated questions about his physical and mental fitness even during his 2020 run.
Those concerns have grown in the 2024 cycle, but have been aggressively combated by the Biden campaign and White House aides, and the president’s relative lack of press conferences and interviews may have shielded scrutiny over his acuity.
