President Biden made the unprecedented decision Sunday to drop out of the 2024 presidential race, less than four months after being declared the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee and just weeks after a dismal debate showing.
“It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your President,” the 81-year-old embattled commander-in- chief wrote in a remarkable letter that he addressed to “My Fellow Americans.”
“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 solely 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,” Biden wrote.
“I want to thank Vice President Kamala Harris for being an extraordinary partner in all this work. And let me express my heartfelt appreciation to the American people for the faith and trusty you have placed in me,” Biden said.
About a half-hour later, he followed up the open letter with another missive on X endorsing Harris to replace him at the top of the flailing party’s new ticket.
“Today I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year,” Biden wrote. “Democrats — it’s time to come together and beat Trump. Let’s do this.”
Five minutes after that, he urged people to donate to her campaign.
Harris issued a statement several hours later praising her boss — and announcing she would be pursuing the party’s presidential nomination, trying to already sound like the party’s top candidate.
“With this selfless and patriotic act, President Biden is doing what he has done throughout his life of service: putting the American people and our country above everything else,” Harris said of Biden’s withdrawal.
“I am honored to have the President’s endorsement and my intention is to earn and win this nomination.
“Over the past year, I have traveled across the country, talking with Americans about the clear choice in this momentous election. And that is what I will continue to do in the days and weeks ahead,” Harris said.
While pressure on Biden to resign had been mounting to almost unmanageable levels over the past few weeks, the president’s announcement Sunday was still historically extraordinary — and left at least some staffers stunned.
Fewer than 20 hours before he publicly called it quits, it appeared even Biden hadn’t made up his mind — tweeting, “It’s the most important election of our lifetimes.
“And I will win it.”
A Democratic operative later told Poltico that the White House is in turmoil.
“We’re all finding out by tweet,” the source said. “None of us understand what’s happening.”
The upheaval also was evident in an email blast fired out by Democratic officials 8 minutes after Biden’s announcement — which still sought donations for “Joe and Kamala.”
In Delaware, Biden’s home state, campaign workers were still busy toiling away on behalf of the president right up until his announcement, the outlet noted.
“I don’t think a soul in Delaware knew,” a Biden state official said of the president’s decision.
GOP presidential foe Donald Trump quickly bashed the presidential drop-out, writing on Truth Social, “Crooked Joe Biden was not fit to run for President, and is certainly not fit to serve – And never was!
“All those around him, including his Doctor and the Media, knew that he wasn’t capable of being President, and he wasn’t,” Trump said.
“And now, look what he’s done to our Country, with millions of people coming across our Border, totally unchecked and unvetted, many from prisons, mental institutions, and record numbers of terrorists.”
Trump also boasted to CNN that he “believes that VP Harris will be easier to beat than Joe Biden would have been,” according to a post on X by the network’s Brian Stelter.
His campaign almost immediately began targeting Harris, with the candidate’s son Donald Trump Jr. ripping her as “more liberal and less competent than Joe” and two top Trump advisers piling on, saying she is “just as much of [a] joke as Biden is.”
An aligned super PAC also announced it was releasing an ad aimed at Harris in critical swing states such as Pennsylvania and Arizona.
The Donald used the occasion to try to cash in with donors, too, telling them they need to help build on “the momentum … AT THIS VERY MOMENT.’’
Trump’s newly minted vice presidential pick, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), and other GOPers had previously questioned whether Biden should be allowed to finish his term if he dropped out, as damning reports about his mental and physical state swirled for months.
“Not running for reelection would be a clear admission that President Trump was right all along about Biden not being mentally fit enough to serve as Commander-in-Chief,” Vance tweeted before the president’s bombshell announcement. “There is no middle ground.”
Biden will finish out his term, said White House Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates.
The president is still set to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the Gaza war this week, an Israeli news station said Sunday.
Biden’s campaign exit occurred just weeks after his debate performance against Trump, 78, in which the incumbent appeared infirm and was at times incoherent — sending Democratic donors and strategists into a tizzy.
It also followed an assassination attempt on Trump during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania earlier this month.
Biden’s withdrawal could set off a free-for-all for the Democratic nomination for president, although Harris has been considered the obvious choice to replace him as the candidate.
The president cannot by decree select his replacement atop the 2024 ticket.
The nearly 4,000 delegates pledged to Biden could have only days to rally around a new candidate as a virtual roll call to formally nominate Biden was expected to be finalized by Aug. 7 before in-person proceedings were set to begin at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
Harris, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear and former first lady Michelle Obama have all been floated as possible replacements for Biden.
Democratic National Committee chief Jaime Harrison on Sunday vowed to conduct a “transparent and orderly process” in terms of selecting Biden’s replacement — although exactly how the historic move would unfold remained unclear.
Harris, 59, is widely seen as the front-runner because of legal constraints over the transfer of the Biden-Harris campaign’s war chest, but many Democrats doubt her viability in the general election, given her favorability ratings often lag behind even Biden’s.
Biden opted to throw in the towel after a series of embarrassing revelations that senior party leaders had no confidence in his ability to win — part of a mounting mutiny that included rank-and-file congressional Democrats fearful that they too would lose if Biden got buried in a landslide.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) were among those who warned Biden about bleak polling data — while former President Barack Obama reportedly confided in allies that he had lost confidence in Biden’s path to another term.
But Biden’s family — including wife Jill and convicted felon son Hunter — were said to have been pushing him to stay in.
Jill Biden on Sunday shared a heart emoji and reposted her husband’s message announcing that he was not seeking re-election.
Public tributes to Biden poured in from Democratic leaders after Sunday’s announcement, likely including from at least some who were relieved that he finally took himself out of the race.
“For him to look at the political landscape and decide that he should pass the torch to a new nominee is surely one of the toughest in his life,” Obama wrote on Medium on Sunday about his former veep.
“But I know he wouldn’t make this decision unless he believed it was right for America.”
Obama — who notably did not endorse Harris as Biden’s replacement — is expected to be crucial in steering the party toward an electable presidential candidate, NBC said.
“We will be navigating uncharted waters in the days ahead,” Obama said in his statement. “But I have extraordinary confidence that the leaders of our party will be able to create a process from which an outstanding nominee emerges.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and former House Speaker and current Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) — who both reportedly privately warned Biden that the Dems would lose if he continued on the ticket — were also among those who praised the president.
They did not endorse Harris as his replacement, either — nor did Democratic Party Chairman Ben Wikler.
Former President Bill Clinton and his wife Hillary — who Biden was booted aside for as the party’s presidential nominee in 2016 — joined the chorus publicly praising Biden, too, while adding they were endorsing Harris.
The president had launched his re-election bid in April 2023, asking voters to give him another four years to help him “finish the job.”
Biden, who at the time was already the oldest president in American history, opted to seek a second term despite plunging support, with polls at the time showing that the majority of Americans, including Democrats, did not want him to reprise his role in the Oval Office for another four years.
The president’s 15 months on the campaign trail did not alleviate voter concern about his age and mental acuity. A second term would’ve seen Biden reach the age of 86 before the end of it.
Special counsel Robert Hur noted in his February report on Biden’s handling of classified White House documents that he opted against recommending criminal charges against the president in part because a jury might view the chief executive as an “elderly man with a poor memory.”
In an interview with Hur, Biden couldn’t recall the years he served as Obama’s vice president or when his son Beau Biden died, according to the scathing report.
A New York Times/Siena College poll released one day before his doomed debate with Trump showed that 70% felt Biden was too old to be commander-in-chief.
His June 27 showdown with Trump, 78, was the death knell of his campaign.
Biden’s debate performance, which included proclaiming to have “beat Medicare” after looking down at his lectern for 10 seconds after losing his train of thought, led to panic in the Democratic establishment.
The liberal New York Times editorial board called on Biden to step aside as the presumptive Democratic nominee the day after the debate, calling the president “admirable” but “the shadow of a great public servant.
“He understood that he needed to address longstanding public concerns about his mental acuity and that he needed to do so as soon as possible. The truth Mr. Biden needs to confront now is that he failed his own test,” the Gray Lady concluded.
Actor George Clooney, who hosted a $30 million Los Angeles fundraiser for Biden in June, also called on him to relinquish the nomination.
“It’s devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fund-raiser was not the Joe ‘big F-ing deal’ Biden of 2010,” Clooney wrote in a Times op-ed. “He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate.”
