President Biden endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris after announcing he is dropping out of the 2024 run for re-election.
“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,” Biden posted on X Sunday afternoon
“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. Democrats — it’s time to come together and beat Trump. Let’s do this,” he continued.
Biden announced just minutes before he endorsed Harris that he is dropping out of the presidential race.
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Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at a campaign rally on June 28, 2024, in Las Vegas. (Bizuayehu Tesfaye/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
“It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your President. And while it has been my intention to seek re-election, 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 said in his letter posted to X Sunday afternoon.
Biden continued that he will address the nation in detail on the decision “later this week.” As of Sunday afternoon, Harris has not tweeted about Biden dropping out.
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President Biden speaks during a campaign event in Philadelphia on April 18, 2024. (Hannah Beier/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
He thanked Harris for her work in the administration, but stopped short of offering her his endorsement in his initial letter. Harris has been considered the top choice to replace Biden ahead of the president officially dropping out.
Democrats’ calls had mounted for weeks that Biden should drop out of the race, following his disastrous debate performance on June 27, which put his mental fitness under further scrutiny as he stumbled over his words and appeared more subdued than in previous years.
As early as Sunday morning, however, Biden allies and the campaign doubled down that the president would not bow out of the race.
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“It is false. And I think that it is false to continue to try to gin up this narrative. Joe Biden has said he is in this race,” deputy campaign manager Quentin Fulks said on MSNBC on Sunday. “He is in this race to win it. He is instructing us to continue to carry out a plan to make sure that we are communicating [to as] many voters as possible. Actions speak louder than words, although sometimes, in this case, I wish that our words would speak louder so that people would stop asking this question. But we are doing both. The president has doubled down and said that he is running in this race to win it, and that he is not going anywhere.”
President Biden and former President Trump (Win McNamee/Getty Images | Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
Biden dropping out comes as former President Trump was officially nominated as the Republican Party’s choice for president. Trump joined the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, last week, where he announced Ohio Sen. JD Vance as his running mate and accepted the nomination.
The RNC was held just two days after an assassination attempt nearly ended Trump’s life, leaving him with an injury to his right ear. A shooter opened fire on Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, last Saturday, injuring Trump and two others, and killing a 50-year-old married dad who was protecting his wife and family from the gunfire.
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Former President Trump arrives to the Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on Wednesday, July 17, 2024. (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Trump addressed the shooting in his highly anticipated RNC speech, while noting “you’ll never hear it from me a second time, because it’s actually too painful to tell.”
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“I’m not supposed to be here tonight,” he said. “I stand before you in this arena only by the grace of almighty God. And watching the reports over the last few days, many people say it was a providential moment. Probably was.”
“For the rest of my life, I will be grateful for the love shown by that giant audience of patriots that stood bravely on that fateful evening in Pennsylvania,” he added.