Joe Biden Withdraws From 2024 Race, Endorses Kamala Harris
Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell / Mary Margaret Olohan /
In a political earthquake, President Joe Biden announced Sunday he is ending his bid for a second term and endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee.
The stunning and virtually unprecedented move comes in the wake of the president’s COVID-19 diagnosis on Wednesday, which prompted more calls from within his own Democratic Party for him to drop out of the race.
“It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your President,” he said in a statement on Sunday. “And while it has been my intention to seek reelection, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus soley on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term.”
“I will speak to the Nation later this week in more detail about my decision.”
“My very first decision as the party nominee in 2020 was to pick Kamala Harris as my Vice President,” he said in a separate post on “X,” formerly known as Twitter. “And it’s been the best decision I’ve made. Today I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year. Democrats — it’s time to come together and beat Trump. Let’s do this.”
Almost two-thirds of Democrats wanted Biden, 81, to withdraw from the presidential race, according to an AP Poll released Wednesday.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., told Biden it would be best if he dropped out, according to ABC News. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said he could jeopardize the Democrats’ chances of taking back the House of Representatives or holding the Senate in November if he remained the nominee.
Biden committed a number of gaffes at a disastrous press conference on July 11 at the conclusion of the 75th NATO Summit in Washington, D.C., including making a reference to “Vice President Trump” and calling the chairman of the military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff the “commander in chief,” a title usually reserved for the president.
Four House Democrats called for Biden to drop out of the race after that press conference, bringing the number of Democratic members of Congress who have withdrawn their support for the president to 20 at that time.
“For the sake of American democracy, and to continue to make progress on our shared priorities, I believe it is time for the president to step aside as our nominee,” Rep. Greg Stanton, D-Ariz., said in a statement. At the time, Stanton was the 15th Democrat to abandon the president.
Liberal news talk-show hosts, lawmakers, and Democratic operatives all expressed horror and confusion at the sitting president’s recent performances, expressing concerns that Biden should step down and allow someone with more vigor to go up against former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, in the upcoming election.
Biden appeared to lose his train of thought about 10 times over the course of almost an hour at the news conference, interrupting himself and trailing off by saying, “Anyway … ”
He was asked first whether he thought Vice President Kamala Harris was ready to be president.
“Look, I wouldn’t have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president [if I thought] she’s not qualified to be president,” Biden replied.
Amid Democrats’ growing concerns about Biden’s capacity to stay in the race against Trump, the president told reporters that no one was telling him he couldn’t possibly defeat Trump in November.
“I’m determined on running,” the president said. When asked about taking a cognitive test, he said, “I’ve taken three significant and intense neurological exams.”
Actor George Clooney said Democrats are “not going to win in November with this president.” In June, Clooney had hosted a fundraiser for Biden three weeks earlier. The actor wrote July 10 in a New York Times opinion article, however, that he noticed at the fundraiser that Biden is no longer who he was in 2010, or even 2020.
TMZ obtained secretly recorded audio of ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos saying he does not think Biden could serve a second full term. The liberal anchor—a former top adviser to a previous Democratic president, BIll Clinton—had interviewed Biden a few days earlier for the July 7 edition of his news-talk show, “This Week.”
Billionaire donors Mark Pincus, Christy Walton, Michael Novogratz, and Reed Hastings had all called for the president’s stepping aside for another candidate.
After Biden faced Trump in the first presidential debate on June 27, Trump in a TruthSocial post on June 29 wrote: “This past Thursday night was a defeat not only for Biden, but for the entire Radical Left Democrat Party and the Fake News Media, who have been lying to the American People as our Country was being destroyed.”
After the debate, first lady Jill Biden insisted, however, that her husband was fit to remain in the race and seek a second term.
“As Joe said earlier today, he’s not a young man,” she told attendees at a fundraiser on June 28 in New York City’s Greenwich Village, The Washington Post reported. “After last night’s debate, he said, ‘You know, Jill, I don’t know what happened. I didn’t feel that great.’”
Jill Biden said she told her husband in response: “Look, Joe, we are not going to let 90 minutes define the four years that you’ve been president.”
Concerns about Biden’s mental and physical acuity had built up throughout his first presidential term. The White House issued 10 corrections for a Biden speech at a campaign event with the NAACP at the end of May.
“When I was vice president, things were kind of bad during the pandemic, and what happened was, Barack [Obama] said to me, ‘Go to Detroit! Help fix it,’” Biden said. The White House transcript of the speech crossed out “pandemic” and replaced it with “recession.”
The White House’s other revisions showed that Biden said “inspiresing” instead of “inspiring,” “irrectionists” instead of “insurrectionists,” and “organization” instead of “award” before referring to the NAACP as “NAAC.”
In February, Biden reportedly said he spoke at a 2021 meeting to a European leader who has been dead for years. Twice, he confused then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel with Helmut Kohl, who served as chancellor from 1982 to 1998 (West Germany from 1982 to 1990 and a reunified Germany from 1990 to 1998) and died in 2017, according to Fox News.
Biden appeared to forget the name of the terrorist organization Hamas in a February press conference.
“There is some movement, and I don’t wanna, I don’t wanna, let me choose my words—there’s some movement,” Biden said. “There’s been a response from the, uh, there’s been a response from the opposition, but umm … .”
A reporter in the audience could be heard saying “Hamas.” Biden responded, “Yes, I’m sorry. From Hamas.”
Fred Lucas contributed to this report.
This is a breaking news story. Please check back for updates.