On Sunday, President Joe Biden backed Vice President Kamala Harris for president and halted his reelection campaign.
“Serving as your President has been the greatest honor of my life,” Biden stated in a letter posted to his official account on X during his presidency. “Although I had planned to run for reelection, I have come to the conclusion that it would benefit my party and the nation if I stepped down and concentrated entirely on finishing my term as president.”
Biden has promised a more in-depth address to the nation later this week.
Biden commended Harris and called for Democrats to rally behind her in a subsequent post. Choosing Kamala Harris to serve as Vice President was Biden’s first priority when he was nominated for the party in 2020, he stated. Plus, it’s the wisest choice I’ve ever taken. I am writing to formally endorse Kamala for the position of party nominee this year.
A number of well-known Democrats, including as Bill and Hillary Clinton, swiftly voiced their support for Harris, while several of those who issued remarks in response to Biden’s choice omitted the vice president.
The 81-year-old president’s mental capacity, stamina, and ability to campaign successfully against former president Donald Trump and manage the nation for another four years were all questions that Biden’s departure put to rest. Right after Biden made his announcement, Republicans began demanding that he resign as president. Trump wrote on Truth Social that Biden “is not fit to serve.” As a result.
“If Joe Biden is not fit to run for President, he is not fit to serve as President,” House Speaker Mike Johnson stated. Immediately, he must step down from his position.
It’s reminiscent of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s choice not to seek reelection in 1968—though Biden’s move comes months later in the campaign than Johnson’s—and marks the first time a sitting US president has backed out of a reelection bid in decades. Along with an assassination attempt on Trump’s life, it is the most recent stunning event in a tense political campaign.
Members of Biden’s congressional party were losing faith in him due to their growing belief that a defeat in November would also sink their down-ballot races, regardless of the attempted assassination on Trump and its turbulent impact on the election.
According to a senior campaign adviser, Biden spoke with family and close aides over the phone in the past 48 hours before deciding to withdraw from the race. At his Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, beach house, he recuperated from COVID-19; he did not meet in person with his top White House or campaign advisors for a final time.
With his withdrawal from the campaign, Joe Biden is bringing to a close a fifty-year political career that began when he was one of the youngest senators in US history and ended when he was the oldest president in the nation.
From his 2020 presidential campaign against Trump onward, Biden’s greatest political liability has been concerns about the president’s mental capacity and his advanced age. These issues became front and center in political discourse after Biden’s disastrous performance at an AWN debate on June 27—during which the president spoke softly, had a glazed-over look, and seemed to lose his train of thought mid-sentence while his opponent delivered an animated, though mostly fact-free, performance—and eventually didomed his reelection campaign.
The June debate was requested by Biden’s team with the intention of drawing attention to the race and Biden’s claims about what was at stake sooner than normal. Unfortunately, the president seems to have backfired on that tactic, as he seemed to have just served to confirm the one criticism leveled against his campaign all along.
Fifty million Americans saw Joe Biden falter during the 90-minute debate, the most prolonged exposure to an unscripted Biden since the last set of general-election debates four years ago. The president’s performance surprised his funders and closest allies. The White House and Biden campaign wasted little time in trying to find an explanation for the president’s illness. They initially said he had a cold, but later changed their story to suggest he was jet lagged from his extensive international travel, which ended around 12 days before the debate.
In an effort to allay Democratic fears, the president’s proxies and campaign officials hastily convened meetings with major contributors and backers, assuring them that Biden’s performance was the result of a single poor night and urging them to view it in the context of his 3.5 years in office.
At a campaign rally the next day, the president attempted to project an image of vitality and energy that had been noticeably lacking during the debates; he himself acknowledged the night’s failure nearly immediately.
Compared to before, Biden’s gait is noticeably more strenuous. I used to be able to speak with more ease. My argument skills have diminished. However, one thing is certain: I am capable of being truthful. From wrong to right, I am aware. This is a task I am familiar with how to complete. I have a knack for getting things done.
It was too late to stop the damage.
Speculation about running against Biden had escalated from whispers on the Monday following the debate to a full-blown public discussion. A negative vibe had begun to permeate both the White House and Biden’s campaign headquarters in Wilmington. In an unusual political overture from the White House, Biden asked voters to “dissent” from the Supreme Court’s immunity decision earlier that day, and he made brief statements about the judgment that evening in an effort to assert his control over his campaign and the president.
The following day, a congressman from Texas named Lloyd Doggett was the first in Biden’s own party to request that he step down from his position. With each passing day, the gaps in Biden’s support have widened. Duchess Biden was requested to withdraw from the campaign by hundreds of politicians before he actually did so.
So did important funders. Actor George Clooney, who has known Joe Biden for a long time and was a major supporter of the president in Hollywood, stated in an opinion piece published in the New York Times on July 10 that Democrats “are not going to win in November with this president” and urged the party to choose a different candidate.
