President Biden said on Sunday Dropping out of the 2024 presidential election and He expressed his support Behind Vice President Kamala Harris.
“While I had intended to seek reelection, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and my country that I step aside and focus on fulfilling the duties of my term as President,” Biden said in a social media post.
Biden said he would address the nation later this week.
Biden endorses Harris nomination
Shortly after the announcement, he endorsed Harris for the Democratic nomination. Biden can’t appoint Biden and Harris met multiple times early Sunday ahead of the announcement, according to people familiar with the matter. Democratic National Committee leaders also held an emergency meeting on Sunday.
“My first decision as the nominee of my party in 2020 was to select Kamala Harris as my vice president,” Biden wrote on social media, “and it was the best decision I ever made. Today I fully endorse and support Kamala as our party’s nominee this year. Fellow Democrats, it’s time to come together and defeat Trump. Let’s do it.”
Harris released a statement Sunday saying she was “honored to have the President’s endorsement and intends to seek and win this nomination.”
“Over the past year, I have traveled the country speaking to Americans about a clear choice in this crucial election,” Harris said. “And in the days and weeks ahead, I will continue to do just that. I will do everything in my power to unite the Democratic Party — and the country — to defeat Donald Trump and his extreme Project 2025 agenda. We are 107 days away from Election Day, and we will fight united. And we will win united.”
Kent Nishimura/AFP via Getty Images
Harris paid tribute to Biden, calling his decision to withdraw from the 2024 presidential race a “selfless and patriotic act.”
Trump’s response
Former President Donald Trump, who was formally nominated by the Republican Party on Thursday night, told CNN after the decision that Biden is “by far the worst president in the history of our country,” but that Harris, if nominated, would be easier to defeat than Biden.
During a call with CBS News reporter Robert Costa, Trump said Biden’s decision was “shocking” but good for the country. Costa said Trump believed Biden had been thrown out of the race and that “it’s a complete shock to the country to have a president thrown out by his own party.”
But Trump declined to debate Harris, telling Costa he wasn’t sure if she would be the nominee and was waiting to see how the Democratic race played out.
The Future of the Democratic Party
“Over the next few days, our party will move forward through a transparent and orderly process as a unified Democratic Party with candidates who can defeat Donald Trump in November,” Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison said Sunday afternoon.
“This process will be governed by our party’s established rules and procedures, and our representatives are prepared to take seriously their responsibility to swiftly deliver a nominee to the American people,” Harrison said.
Democratic National Committee executive committee member Alan Clendenin of Florida told CBS News on Sunday that he expects a “supermajority” of delegates to support Harris in the coming days.
“The delegates at the convention are the ones who put our nominee on the ballot,” Clendenin said. “If Biden had still been on the nominee list, that would have been a procedural thing.”
It is unprecedented for a sitting president and presumptive nominee to withdraw so late into a campaign, and Biden’s decision underscores the severity of the crisis that has enveloped his campaign after his disastrous campaign. Debate Performance Against Trump.
The day after the debate, A growing chorus of Democrats Openly expressed concerns President’s Health His mental state, his ability to defeat Trump in November and his ability to lead the country for the next four years. Pressure to step back His steadily rising approval rating comes as Democratic lawmakers and governors have gone days without hearing directly from Biden, questions about his future swirl within the party, and a growing number of Democrats in Congress are publicly calling for Biden to step down.
In the weeks after the debate, the president tried to push back in a series of public comments. meeting and Democratic Party Elected Officials He expressed his determination to continue racing: “I’m not going anywhere,” he said. I sworeBut even longtime allies are beginning to urge him to change course.
The pressure eventually became so insurmountable that Democratic leaders in Congress told Biden he should step aside to allow his replacement to face Trump in November.
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Biden is the first sitting president eligible for reelection to decline to run for reelection since President Lyndon Johnson left office in the spring before the 1968 election. Johnson’s vice president, Hubert Humphrey, won the Democratic nomination that year but lost to Richard Nixon.
Only a handful of first-term presidents in American history have not sought a second term. The last president was Rutherford B. Hayes, who declined to run again in the 1880 election. James Buchanan and James Polk also chose not to run for a second term. Calvin Coolidge, who took office after the death of Warren Harding in 1923, won his own term in 1924 but declined to seek another term four years later.
A disastrous debate
Biden’s team and allies have spent months reassuring the public that the president is up to the demanding task of leading the free world, often dismissing questions about his age and health despite consistent polling showing public concerns — Biden will be 86 at the end of his second term.
But on debate night, June 27, more than 50 million Americans watched as the president, without a teleprompter or notes, struggled to not only counter Trump but also to articulate his own policies. Never the most eloquent speaker, Biden repeatedly lost his train of thought, muddled his answers and, at one point, said his administration “won on Medicare.”
The gaffe embarrassed members of Biden’s own party, many of whom were quick to recognize the political dangers of putting Biden at the top of the list of candidates if an overwhelming majority of voters decide he is unfit to be president.
Before his 2020 victory, Biden touted himself as a “bridge” to a “new generation of leaders,” and many doubted he would serve just one term. After the debate, he explained he had changed his mind, saying the division in the country led him to believe he was the only one who could defeat Trump.
After days of efforts by his campaign and other allies to contain the fallout, the dam broke and the president found himself under pressure from a growing number of Democrats in Congress to step down and make way for a new candidate. The president resisted the pressure for more than a week, openly defiantly stating that he would not give up on his reelection bid. But he made a series of gaffes in interviews and speeches that did little to ease concerns about whether he could win the presidential election in November.
Calls for Biden to resign subsided following the July 13 assassination attempt on President Trump. But behind the scenes, Democratic leaders in Congress were reportedly urging him to step down, and polls showed a majority of Democrats would support another candidate. News of this private pressure campaign began to break on July 17, the same day that Adam Schiff, a leading Democratic senator, called on Biden to resign.
The Democratic National Committee also postponed a virtual vote that would have cemented Biden’s status as the nominee, announcing on July 17 that it was delaying plans for a quick resolution until August. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries reportedly urged the party’s rules committee to postpone the vote.
What happens next?
With states already holding their primaries, Democratic voters have neither the time nor the mechanism to directly choose a successor. At this point in the process, Democratic delegates, the state and local party officials elected in the primaries, will decide who will replace front-runner Biden at or before the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August. Whatever the end result, the coming weeks will be a logistical nightmare for Democrats.
The tournament is scheduled to begin on August 19 in Chicago.
The party confirmed Friday that it will hold a virtual roll call between Aug. 1 and 7 to formally select its candidates to ensure access to the ballot in the state amid ongoing dispute over Ohio’s ballot certification deadline. Whether that will happen now that Biden has withdrawn remains to be seen.
Ed O’Keefe contributed to this report.
