Former President Joe Biden admitted he had a hard time bowing out of the 2024 presidential race after his agenda got going as he opened up about his difficult decision in his first broadcast interview since leaving office in January.
Biden, 82, conceded to BBC Radio 4’s Today program when asked why he didn’t end his campaign earlier: ‘I don’t think it would have mattered.’
After a disastrous debate against Donald Trump on June 27, Biden took less than a month to finally end his reelection bid on July 21, 2024.
That gave then-Vice President Kamala Harris just 106 days to build-out a presidential campaign, which she ultimately lost to Trump in November.
‘It’s a question lots of people ask you, Mr. President – did you leave it too late? Should you have withdrawn earlier, given someone else a bigger chance?’ BBC host Nick Robinson asked.
‘We left at a time when we had a good candidate,’ Biden said of Harris in the interview that aired Wednesday morning. ‘She was fully funded.’
Former President Joe Biden spoke out about his eleventh-hour decision to drop out of the 2024 presidential election in his first broadcast interview since leaving office in January
‘And what happened was, what we had set out to do, no one thought we could do,’ the former president added. ‘We had become so successful in our agenda, it was hard to say, ‘I’m gonna stop now.”
The eleventh-hour decision has been widely criticized by Democrats who felt that if Biden gave into the pressure earlier it could have made a difference in the 2024 election outcome.
But Biden threw a wrench into his confusing defense when he told BBC that he always intended to serve only one term.
The former president said he wanted to be a transitional figure for the future of the Democratic Party after defeating Trump in 2020.
‘I meant what I said when I started, that I’m preparing to hand this to the next generation … but things moved so quickly, and it made it difficult to walk away,’ he admitted.
Biden’s demeanor in the gaffe-filled sit-down was reminiscent of the latter years of his presidential term, riddled with mumbles, nonsensical rants and long pauses.
He struggled to properly articulate his thoughts, at times speak in whispers and refused to ever address the current president by his name.
Biden told USA Today in one of his final interviews before ending his one-term presidency that he thought he could have won in a rematch with Trump if he stayed in the race.
But polling and public sentiment showed a very different story with Biden heading for a landslide loss.
Biden told BBC Radio 4’s Today program host Nick Robinson that he doesn’t think the 2024 election outcome would have been different if he dropped his reelection bid earlier
Biden ended his reelection bid on July 21, 2024, which gave then-Vice President Kamala Harris just 106 days to build-out the presidential campaign
Biden opted for his first post-presidency broadcast interview to be with a foreign outlet. It was pre-recorded on Monday in the former president’s hometown of Wilmington, Delaware.
The interview was done under the pretenses of speaking with Biden on the day marking the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe.
In the sit-down, Biden continued to lash out at his predecessor and successor.
He doesn’t like the way Trump talks and how he conducts foreign relations – like musing about taking over Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal and renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.
‘What the hell’s going on here? What president ever talks like that? That’s not who we are,’ the former president said. ‘We’re about freedom, democracy, opportunity, not about confiscation.’
He also voiced worries about U.S. relations with Europe declining after Trump took over.
Biden expressed ‘grave concern’ over the breakdown of post-World War II allegiances and called it ‘foolish’ to think Russian President Vladimir Putin would concede the war in Ukraine if parts of the country were given to the Kremlin as part of a peace deal.
He can’t understand how Trump believes ‘dictator’ Putin would be fully satisfied if he is allowed to ‘take significant portions of land that aren’t his.’
