President Joe Biden announced that he is withdrawing from the 2024 Presidential race against Republican nominee Donald Trump.
President Joe Biden is leaving the 2024 race after a halting debate performance against Donald Trump led to questions from Democrats about his age, ability to carry out his campaign and whether he could serve a second term.
Biden said in a statement posted Sunday that he will “stand down.”
“It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your President,” he wrote, in part, in a letter posted on X. “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,” he added.
In another post on X, Biden gave his “full support and endorsement” for Vice President Kamala Harris to be the Democratic Party’s nominee.
First lady Jill Biden reposted her husband’s post announcing he’s dropping out with a hearts emoji.
The stunning move upends what has been a long general election rematch between Biden and Trump, both of whom handily won their party’s primaries, with less than four months until the November contest.
While concerns about Biden’s age plagued him since he launched his reelection campaign in April 2023, they reached a fever pitch following his showdown with Trump at the CNN debate in Atlanta in late June.
Biden, who at 81 is the oldest sitting president in history, spoke with a hoarse voice that his team attributed to a cold. But coupled with his meandering answers and inability to hit Trump hard on key Democratic issues, his performance left some pundits and politicians speechless.
Thank you, @JoeBiden. May you find fair wind and following seas. https://t.co/es9iZD4KeX
— Reed Galen (@reedgalen) July 21, 2024
Keep checking The Moderate Voice. We’ll have reaction and other posts on Biden’s decision later today.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.