Akiva Van Koningsveld | JNS.org
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.
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.”
