United States President Joe Biden announced Sunday that he is withdrawing from the presidential election race and endorsed Kamala Harris to take his place against Donald Trump this November.
“It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your President,” Biden said in a statement released Sunday shortly before 2 p.m. ET.
“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,” he said.
Biden said he would address the nation later this week to provide more details about his decision.
In a separate statement, Biden gave his endorsement to his vice-president, Kamala Harris.
“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 decision I’ve made. Today I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year,” he said.
“Democrats — it’s time to come together and beat Trump. Let’s do this.”
Biden plans to serve out the remainder of his term in office, which ends at noon ET on Jan. 20, 2025.
Harris said she intends to “earn and win” the Democratic nomination in a statement thanking Biden for his leadership and service.
“I will do everything in my power to unite the Democratic Party—and unite our nation—to defeat Donald Trump,” she added.
For his part, Trump took to his social media platform Truth Social shortly after Biden’s announcement to decry the sitting president as “not fit” to lead the nation and bashing his tenure in the Oval Office.
“We will suffer greatly because of his presidency, but we will remedy the damage he has done very quickly,” he said in a post Sunday afternoon.
Biden changes his mind
Before Biden’s announcement to drop out of the presidential race, he had insisted he planned to stay in, expressing confidence that he could defeat Trump again this year.
The president had been isolating at his home in Delaware after testing positive for COVID-19 earlier this week.
But while Biden isolated, many top Democrats had privately and publicly expressed concern over his ability to beat Trump, citing concerns about this age.
On July 18, several media outlets reported that former president Barack Obama had privately expressed concerns to Democrats about Biden’s candidacy. And Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi privately warned Biden that Democrats could lose the ability to seize control in the House if he didn’t step away from the race.
California Rep. Adam Schiff, on July 17, called on Biden to drop his reelection bid, saying that while the decision is Biden’s alone to make, he believes it’s time to “pass the torch.”
Biden, 81, was elected president on Nov. 3, 2020, along with his running mate, Harris. He took office on Jan. 20, 2021.
The U.S. presidential election is slated for Nov. 5.
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A party’s presumptive presidential nominee has never stepped out of the race so close to the election. The closest parallel would be President Lyndon Johnson who, besieged by the Vietnam War, announced in March 1968 that he would not seek another term.
Harris gears up for presidential run
The Democratic National Convention is scheduled to be held Aug. 19 to 22 in Chicago, but the party had announced that it would hold a virtual roll call to formally nominate Biden before in-person proceedings begin.
It remained to be seen whether other candidates would challenge Harris for the nomination. The Democratic National Committee’s chair, Jaime Harrison, said in a statement that the party would “undertake a transparent and orderly process” to select “a candidate who can defeat Donald Trump in November.”
As Harris looks to lock up the nomination, the Associated Press reported she was hitting the phones Sunday and making her case to Democrats in Congress.
While some Democrats remained silent on who they want for a nominee, many others said the party should immediately assemble behind Harris. They want to quickly move past the painful, public deliberations of the weeks since the July 27 debate.
Among potential top tier contenders, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has already said she won’t run, while California Gov. Gavin Newsom has said he would back Harris if she became the nominee. South Carolina Rep. Jim Clyburn also endorsed Harris on Sunday, as did Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, who has been the subject of speculation as a potential running mate.
President Biden’s campaign formally changed its name to Harris for President, reflecting that she is inheriting his political operation — a sign of the prohibitive leg up she has for the Democratic nomination.
Democratic groups, including the Democratic National Committee, also filed paperwork changing the names of their joint fundraising committees to reflect Harris’ candidacy.
Former President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton issued a joint statement endorsing Kamala Harris, saying it’s time to “fight with everything we’ve got” to elect her.
Politicians react to Biden's exit
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau commented on Biden’s decision in a brief statement Sunday, calling the president a “great man” who acts out of love for his country.
“As President, he is a partner to Canadians — and a true friend. To President Biden and the First Lady: thank you,” Trudeau said on X.
After Biden’s announcement, Democrats and Republicans swiftly took to social media to react to the bombshell. The president’s allies in the Democratic Party expressed their appreciation, praising him for his decision.
In a statement, Obama called Biden — his own two-term vice-president — “one of America’s most consequential presidents, as well as a dear friend and partner to me.”
Obama touted Biden’s accomplishments and moral character, adding his track record as president gives him “every right to run for re-election and finish the job he started.”
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He said that Biden knows the stakes of the upcoming election “better than anyone,” juxtaposing Biden’s willingness to vie for a second term with the risks of Trump and Republican Party taking back control of the White House and Congress.
“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. But I know he wouldn’t make this decision unless he believed it was right for America,” Obama said.
“It’s a testament to Joe Biden’s love of country — and a historic example of a genuine public servant once again putting the interests of the American people ahead of his own that future generations of leaders will do well to follow,” Obama said.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer in a statement on X also called Biden a “great president and a great legislative leader” and praised the president for putting his country, party and “our future first.”
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer also thanked Biden on X, stating the president, “is a great public servant who knows better than anyone what it takes to defeat Donald Trump.”
Biden’s granddaughter, Naomi Biden praised her grandfather, stating “I’m nothing but proud today of my Pop, our President, Joe Biden, who has served our country with every bit of his soul and with unmatched distinction,” on X.
U.S. House Speaker and Republican Mike Johnson also took to X, calling for Biden’s resignation.
“At this unprecedented juncture in American history, we must be clear about what just happened. The Democrat Party forced the Democrat nominee off the ballot, just over 100 days before the election,” he said.
“Having invalidated the votes of more than 14 million Americans who selected Joe Biden to be the Democrat nominee for president, the self-proclaimed ‘party of democracy’ has proven exactly the opposite. If Joe Biden is not fit to run for President, he is not fit to serve as President. He must resign the office immediately. November 5 cannot arrive soon enough.”
And Trump posted on his social media platform, Truth Social, criticizing Biden’s presidential run.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz called Biden a friend and said the president has achieved a lot for the U.S., Europe and the world. Scholz cited a strong NATO and close transatlantic cooperation as examples.
New British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who met Biden for the first time this month, said he knows he reached his decision based on what he believes is in the “best interests of the American people.”
“We respect today’s tough but strong decision,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a post on the social platform X.
“We will always be thankful for President Biden’s leadership. He supported our country during the most dramatic moment in history, assisted us in preventing Putin from occupying our country, and has continued to support us throughout this terrible war.”
David Cohen, the U.S. ambassador to Canada, said in a statement Sunday that he is “enormously proud” of Biden’s leadership preserving democracy worldwide and “restoring confidence and trust in the United States globally.”
“It will continue to be the honor of my lifetime to serve through the remainder of his presidency,” Cohen said.
— With files from Global News’s Kathryn Mannie, the Associated Press and Reuters
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