U.S. President Joe Biden will not seek re-election this November and is stepping aside for another Democratic candidate for the White House, the 81-year-old president announced on Sunday.
“It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your president, 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,” Biden stated.
The president promised to address the American people “later this week” and explain his decision further.
The president, who has faced increasing calls to quit the race from his own side of the aisle since a widely-criticized performance at a debate with former president Donald Trump, noted that hist decision as nominee in 2020 was to pick Kamala Harris as his vice president.
“It’s been the best decision I’ve made,” he stated. “Today I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year. Democrats—it’s time to come together and beat Trump. Let’s do this.”
“America has never been better positioned to lead than we are today,” Biden added.
Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social that “Crooked Joe Biden was not fit to run for president, and is certainly not fit to serve—and never was.”
“He only attained the position of president by lies, fake news and not leaving his basement,” Trump wrote. “All those around him, including his doctor and the media, knew that he wasn’t capable of being president, and he wasn’t—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.”
Gavin Newsom, the Democratic governor of California who has been discussed as a potential Democratic candidate to challenge Trump, wrote that Biden “has been an extraordinary, history-making president—a leader who has fought hard for working people and delivered astonishing results for all Americans.”
“He will go down in history as one of the most impactful and selfless presidents,” Newsom wrote.
Earlier in the day, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), Trump’s running mate for vice president, wrote that “If Joe Biden ends his reelection campaign, how can he justify remaining president?”
“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 wrote. “There is no middle ground.”
Lyndon B. Johnson was the last U.S. president to announce—on March 31, 1968—that he wasn’t seeking re-election, 295 days before his term ended. Harry S. Truman did the same on March 29, 1952, which was 297 days prior to his term ending.
Biden’s announcement comes 183 days before his term ends.
Naomi Biden wrote that her grandfather “has served our country with every bit of his soul and with unmatched distinction.”
“Not only has he been—and will continue to be—the most effective president of our lifetime, but he has likely already cemented himself as the most effective and impactful public servant in our nation’s history,” she wrote. “He has been at the center of, and had a material impact on, literally every single major issue that our country and world has faced for 50 years. Our world is better today in so many ways thanks to him.”
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, wrote that the president is “an American hero, a true statesman and he’ll go down in history as one of the greatest champions of working families our nation has ever known.”
Ben Shapiro, co-founder of the Daily Wire, wrote that the idea that Biden is a “selfless hero” ignores “the simple fact that if Joe Biden were up in the polls, there would have been zero pressure for him to get out, and he never would have dropped, no matter how senile he is.”
