US President Joe Biden on Sunday withdrew from the 2024 White House race following mounting calls from many Democrats at the highest levels for the octogenarian leader to make way for a new nominee. Biden’s exit comes after a series of embarrassing gaffes in recent weeks that raised questions over his ability to take on Donald Trump in the November election.
"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 wrote in a statement on X.
Biden said he will remain in his role as president and commander-in-chief until his term ends in January 2025. He will address the nation this week.
The first in-person showdown of the 2024 campaign between President Joe Biden and his predecessor, Donald Trump, opened with the terms and conditions in the incumbent’s favour. Instead it marked the beginning of the end of Biden’s reelection hopes, heralding a dramatic – and for some, traumatic – period in the history of US presidential campaigns.
Read more🔴 Live: Biden backs VP Kamala Harris as Democratic nominee after dropping out of race
Days before the June 27 presidential debate, both candidates agreed on parameters designed to avoid the pitfalls of the 2020 debates, which Trump derailed with incessant interruptions and crosstalk.
This time, the microphones were muted throughout the debate except when it was a candidate’s turn to speak. When the host CNN posted a pre-debate primer on the new rules, Trump’s supporters were up in arms, slamming “kindergarten bullshit” and calling for spontaneous interactions between the candidates.
They need not have feared.
Biden’s faltering performance, with the 81-year-old president sometimes freezing mid-sentence for agonising seconds before trailing off in a raspy voice, sparked a tumultuous debate on the aging president’s mental faculties.
Read moreBiden stumbles in first US presidential debate of 2024
Post-debate interview does not ‘calm jittery nerves’
Hours after the debate ended, the media was on the story, with the US liberal media headlines highlighting his “unsteady performance”.
The conservative press was scathing. The National Review took just a few hours to publish an editorial accusing Biden of being “selfish” in many ways. “Joe Biden’s selfishness, stubbornness, ambition, and pride have made it very likely that Donald Trump will be the next president of the United States,” said the reputed magazine that has frequently called on conservatives to stand against Trump.
An ABC interview a week after the debate presented an opportunity for Biden to reassure voters and prove that he’s able to serve another term in the White House.
But it didn’t, according to Thomas Gift, director of the Centre on US Politics at University College London (UCL). “He didn’t do much to calm the jittery nerves of Democrats. I think the voices within his party, on Capitol Hill as well as in the commentary, in the punditry, they’re not growing any softer,” Gift told FRANCE 24 the morning after Biden’s interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos was broadcast.
Hollywood declares the end of showtime
The doubts were growing but they did not appear to reach the ears of the president and his inner circle. “Defiant” – an adjective frequently employed by media organisations sympathetic to the seasoned US politician and dreading a Trump second term – resurfaced in the headlines.
In the end, it took Hollywood to call it an end to showtime.
On July 10, Hollywood star George Clooney, a self-declared “lifelong Democrat” and celebrity donor, called on Biden to step aside in a shock New York Times guest column.
Just weeks before he wrote the column, Clooney had spent time with the US president and helped deliver $28 million to Biden’s campaign at a Los Angeles fundraiser.
Clooney’s column made for a wrenching read, with the Hollywood star professing his “love” for Biden while imploring him to do the right thing to “save democracy”.
Zelensky and Putin, what’s the difference?
But the “defiant” octogenarian president rolled on, brushing aside concerns raised by Clooney, former US House speaker Nancy Pelosi and a trickle of Democrats as he sought the support of union leaders, meeting with the executive council of the AFL-CIO, America’s largest federation of trade unions.
Biden “the fighter” would prove his chops at a “high-stakes” press conference during NATO’s 75th anniversary summit in Washington DC, his aides told reporters.
But hours before the press conference, the Biden gaffe machine was in full force.
As the US president was introducing his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, at a NATO-Ukraine compact at the summit, Biden ceremoniously declared: "And now I want to hand it over to the president of Ukraine, who has as much courage as he has determination, ladies and gentlemen…President Putin."
His error drew gasps from a room packed with high-profile supporters and well-wishers. Fellow leaders, such as French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer tried to brush aside the lapses as they fielded questions from reporters on Biden’s abilities.
Read moreBiden mistakenly introduces Zelensky as Putin at NATO event
Harris and Trump, what’s the difference?
There was worse to come at the much-anticipated press conference in Washington DC.
Amid reports that his campaign had commissioned a survey to test how Vice President Kamala Harris would fare if she were to replace Biden at the top of the Democrat ticket, the US president was asked if he had concerns over Harris’s ability to beat Trump.
"Look, I wouldn't have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president if she was not qualified to be president. So start there," replied Biden.
It marked the start of serious soul-searching within Democrat ranks as the momentum shifted in Trump’s favour following a July 13 assassination attempt that saw the 78-year-old Republican candidate emerge in fighting form.
Read moreAs it happened: Trump survives assassination attempt
‘Secretly brilliant president’ flitting around ‘like Batman’
Biden, a self-confessed “gaffe machine”, has a history of blunders. But they were overlooked for years by a largely supportive US liberal media, aided by a loyal team of aides who stuck to message.
“As Biden’s decline grew more visible, people kept respectfully airing the administration’s insultingly implausible claims: that there was a secretly brilliant president flitting around the back corridors of the White House like Batman, while the videos of that same president acting befuddled on world stages were 'cheap fakes',” noted right-leaning columnist Megan McArdle in The Washington Post.
The spin was difficult to sustain as the US president tested positive for Covid-19 just as Trump’s vice-presidential pick, JD Vance, 39, fired up the base at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
As polls showed a majority of Democrats believing Vice President Harris would make a good president, it was time to wake up and smell the coffee.
The wake-up comes late in the campaign season, with the Democratic National Convention scheduled to be held from August 19 to 22 in Chicago. But the 2024 campaign has been packed with surprises – and, as the saying goes, a week is a long time in politics.
