President Joe Biden speaks to the press before boarding Marine One en route to Austin, Texas on July 29, 2024 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Bonnie Cash/Getty Images)
OAN Staff Sophia Flores 8:48 AM – Sunday, August 11, 2024
In his first sit-down interview since he left the 2024 presidential election, Joe Biden has announced why he decided to drop out of the race.
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While opening up in an interview with CBS News Sunday Morning, the president shared that many of his Democrat colleagues, including former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), were pushing for Biden to end his bid. They claimed that him staying in the race would hurt the Democrat party as a whole.
“A number of my Democratic colleagues in the House and Senate thought that I was going to hurt them in the races,” Biden explained. “And I was concerned if I stayed in the race, that would be the topic — you’d be interviewing me about why did Nancy Pelosi say [something] … and I thought it’d be a real distraction.”
Biden insisted that he saw himself as a “transition president” and that it was time for the next generation to take over.
“When I ran the first time, I thought of myself as being a transition president. I can’t even say how old I am — it’s hard for me to get out of my mouth.” Biden added that it was a combination of those factors and a key priority of “maintaining this democracy” that contributed to his final decision.
The 46th president said that the race between himself and Donald Trump was neck and neck. He believes that his current vice president, Kamala Harris, will have a better shot.
“The polls we had showed that it was a neck and neck race, would have been down to the wire. But what happened was a number of my Democratic colleagues in the House and Senate thought that I was going to hurt them in the races. And I was concerned if I stayed in the race, that would be the topic,” he said.
Biden endorsed Harris the day that he dropped out of the race.
My fellow Democrats, I have decided not to accept the nomination and to focus all my energies on my duties as President for the remainder of my term. My very first decision as the party nominee in 2020 was to pick Kamala Harris as my Vice President. And it’s been the best… pic.twitter.com/x8DnvuImJV
