US President Joe Biden on Sunday said he ended his reelection bid after hearing from congressional Democrats that he’d harm their chances in November and concluding that he’d be “a real distraction” if he stayed in the race.
In his first sit-down interview since dropping out from the president race, Biden offered insight into the lead-up to his decision, which came after his party exerted pressure due to worries about his age and mental sharpness. This comes weeks after a disastrous debate with Republican nominee Donald Trump.
On CBS’s Sunday Morning, Biden, 81, said the polls showed that it was a neck-and-neck race, “but what happened was a number of my Democratic colleagues in the House and Senate thought that I was going to hurt them in their races. And I was concerned if I stayed in the race that would be the topic.”
Biden, who endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for the Democratic nomination, said he thought “it would be a real distraction” if he continued to pursue his second-term bid.
On August 15, Biden and Harris plan to campaign in Maryland. This will be their first joint appearance since he left the race, and Harris secured their party’s presidential nomination.
The president has portrayed his decision as an effort to bring the nation together under the leadership of a younger generation, yet he faced relentless pressure from his own party to proceed with the action.
“We must, we must, we must defeat Trump,” Biden said in the CBS News interview.
Biden’s exit from the race made him the first sitting US president not to pursue a second term since 1968, when fellow Democrat Lyndon Baines Johnson said he wouldn’t accept his party’s nomination.
The 2024 race, already marked by turmoil, witnessed Donald Trump becoming the first former president to be convicted of a felony. Subsequently, Trump survived an assassination attempt when a bullet grazed his ear.
