Biden's decision to drop out became clear on Sunday. His aides knew about it a minute before the public.
WASHINGTON: On Sunday at 1:45 p.m., President Joe Biden's senior staff was informed that he would withdraw from the race for the 2024 presidential nomination. At 1:46 p.m., this news was made public.
Biden never intended to drop out of the race. Until he decided to withdraw on Sunday, he was fully involved.
His campaign team planned fundraisers and events and organized trips for the next few weeks. But while Biden publicly argued that he was staying in the race, he was quietly reflecting on the disaster of the past few weeks, the last three years of his presidency and the future of his 50-year career in politics.
In the end, it was the President's decision alone, and he made it quietly, from his vacation home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, ill with Covid-19, and accompanied by the First Lady, as he discussed the decision with a small circle of people who have been with him for decades.
“This has to be one of the hardest decisions he's ever made,” said Senator Chris Coons (D-Delaware), the president's closest ally in Congress, who spoke with him on Sunday. “I know he wanted to fight and keep going and show that he could beat Donald Trump again, but as he heard more and more opinions, I think he was wrestling with what was best for the country,” Coons said in an interview with the Associated Press.
This article is based on interviews with more than a dozen people familiar with the president's deliberations in the weeks, days and hours that went into making his decision. They spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity about private conversations.
Decision to leave the race
It was not until Saturday evening that Biden became convinced that he would not run for re-election. He began writing a letter to the American people.
Biden had been off the campaign trail for a few days due to the Covid-19 pandemic when the whole truth dawned on him: his chances of defeating Donald Trump were worsening, while large parts of his party were openly rebelling against him and trying to push him out of the race. Not to mention voters' ongoing concerns about his age, which were only exacerbated by the disastrous debate.
Biden was at his beach house with some of his and Jill Biden's closest aides: chief strategist Mike Donilon, presidential adviser Steve Ricchetti, deputy White House chief of staff Annie Tomasini and Anthony Bernal, senior adviser to the first lady.
On Sunday, his decision was clear. He spoke several times with Vice President Kamala Harris, whom he would support. He informed White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients and his long-time assistant and campaign manager Jen O'Malley Dillon.
A small group of senior advisers from both the campaign and the White House were gathered for the 1:45 p.m. conference call to announce Biden's decision, while his campaign posted the announcement on social media a minute later.
“It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve you as President. And while I intend to run for re-election, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country that I step down and focus solely on performing my duties as President for the remainder of my term,” Biden wrote.
Less than half an hour later, he publicly announced his support for Harris. It was a carefully choreographed strategy designed to give full weight to the president's first statement and end the moment before moving on to the next step.
“Today, I want to express my full support and endorsement of Kamala as our party's nominee this year,” Biden said in another post on X. “Democrats – it's time to come together and defeat Trump.”
Elizabeth Alexander, Jill Biden's communications director, said: “Until the final hours of the decision that only he could make, she supported him in every path he chose.”
“She supports him with the utmost affection and devotion and is always on his side, in the trusting way that only a wife of nearly 50 years of marriage can have,” Alexander said.
About the debate
It's not as if things were going particularly well before the June 27 debate. In an August 2023 poll by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, a full 77 percent of American adults said Biden was too old to succeed for another four years. Not only did 89 percent of Republicans say that, but 69 percent of Democrats also said so.
And by April, the situation was no better: More than half of American adults believed Biden's presidency would harm the country on issues such as the cost of living and immigration.
But Biden had emphasized – to himself, to the nation and to his supporters – that he could convince voters if he went out on the streets and told people about his record and explained it to them. If he talked to them. If he looked them in the eye.
He had a lifetime of experience telling him that if he stuck with it, he could do it. In fact, his campaign team was so confident that it bypassed the Commission on Presidential Debates to organize a series of confrontations with Trump under new rules.
That led to the June 27 debate that launched Biden's downfall. Biden gave nonsensical answers, stopped mid-sentence and appeared to stare blankly in front of an audience of 51 million people. Perhaps most troubling to other Democrats, Biden did not address Trump's myriad falsehoods about his involvement in the violence surrounding the January 6, 2021 insurrection, abortion rights or immigration.
Biden and his team blamed the night on so many different things. He had a cold. He was jet-lagged. He needed more sleep. That night was an opportunity for his party to push him out.
A slow acceptance
Publicly and privately, Biden fought to stay in the race, trying to convince voters that he was ready for another four years. He was frustrated by the Democrats' public evidence to the contrary, but he was even more angry about the leaks and anonymous sources who reported that even former President Barack Obama and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi were trying to get him to drop out.
A few times he seemed to have got his way; the chorus of naysayers seemed to be silencing. He gave some well-received speeches, mixed with mediocre television interviews and a day of extended press conferences in which he showed a nuanced understanding of policy but also made a few outrageous gaffes.
But the doubts did not subside.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer eventually invited senior Biden aides to a meeting on July 11 to discuss their concerns. The meeting did not go well. Senators voiced their concerns, and almost none of them said they had confidence in the president. But even afterward, Schumer was concerned that Biden was unaware of it.
Following the meeting, Schumer called Democratic House Speaker Hakeem Jeffries, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and former President Obama. Schumer decided to request a meeting with Biden that same day.
At a meeting in Rehoboth on July 13, Schumer told Biden he was there out of love and affection. And he made a personal appeal about Biden's legacy, the future of the country and the impact the front-runner candidacy could have on the congressional elections – and how that could potentially affect the Supreme Court. That same day, there was an attempted assassination of Donald Trump.
Schumer told the president he did not expect him to make an immediate decision but hoped Biden would think about his words, according to a person familiar with the conversation.
Biden replied, “I need another week,” and the two men hugged.
Decision on Sunday
Things were moving forward at full speed until Biden pulled the emergency brake.
The president had lost his voice but was recovering well and his doctor had sent the public an update on his condition just before 1 p.m. His small circle decided to release the statement on X on Sunday rather than let it leak out for days before he was ready to address the nation, which he is scheduled to do early this week.
Much of his campaign was accompanied by unexpected events, and that was evident in how little changed after his exit. Hours after the announcement, Biden's campaign website still indicated he was still running, and KamalaHarris.com still redirected to Biden's page.
Even Harris' statement announcing her intention to succeed Biden was broadcast by “Joe Biden for President.”
After the public announcement, Zients called senior aides, sent emails and spoke with members of Biden's Cabinet, stressing that nothing had changed in terms of government work and that the administration still had a lot of work to do, according to two people with knowledge of the news. And the president also had private conversations.
“Team – I wanted to make sure you saw the attached letter from the President,” Zients wrote in the staff email. “I couldn't be prouder to work for President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and the American people — alongside all of you, the best White House team in history. There is still so much work to be done — and as President Biden says, 'There is nothing America can't do — if we do it together.'”
Vermont Democratic Senator Peter Welch, who had called for Biden's resignation, was gardening with his wife when the news broke. He said he was “stunned” for a moment. Senators texted each other, asking if this was really happening.
Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut was at an event in his state and when the crowd was told that Biden would not run, there was spontaneous applause, he said.
There was an excitement and energy in the crowd “that was completely missing,” Blumenthal said.
“It was also, quite frankly, a feeling of relief,” he said. “And a feeling of awe for Joe Biden.”
On Sunday evening, Biden officially became Harris’s presidency.
O'Malley Dillon told campaign staff that their jobs were safe as they were currently focused on a campaign in favor of Harris.
