President Joe Biden, in a rare address to the nation from the Oval Office, will speak at length for the first time about his decision to withdraw from the 2024 race and his plans for what will now be the final months of his long political career.
Biden will deliver a speech at 8 p.m. ET on Wednesday, three days after his shock announcement in a letter to “my fellow Americans” that he was stepping down from the campaign trail.
He is also expected to discuss how he plans to “finish the job” – the phrase that became his re-election motto as he campaigned for a second term against his 2020 rival, Donald Trump.
That electoral battle ended Sunday when Biden bowed to a month of intense pressure from Democrats to change course after his poor debate performance revived questions about his age and ability to take on Trump for four more years in office.
“It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your president,” Biden wrote in the letter posted on social media as he recovered from COVID-19 at his residence in Rehoboth, Delaware.
“While I intend to run for re-election, I believe it is in the best interests of my party and the country for me to step aside and focus solely on fulfilling my duties as president for the remainder of my term,” he wrote. “I will speak more fully to The Nation about my decision later this week.”
Biden quickly passed the baton to Vice President Kamala Harris, who has begun campaigning to become the Democratic nominee. Her first stop Monday was at the Biden-Harris team headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware.
The president attended the event to address his staff and reiterate his support for Harris.
“I know yesterday’s news was surprising and hard for you to hear,” Biden said. “But it was the right thing to do.”
He also told them that their mission had not changed and that he would be at Harris’ side until November.
“And by the way, I’m not going anywhere. I’m going to be on the ground campaigning with her, with Kamala. I’m going to work my ass off, both as a sitting president to pass laws and campaigning,” he said.
Still, Wednesday’s formal speech about his departure in 2024 is bound to be an emotional moment for Biden, as it marks the beginning of the end of his decades-long career in public service.
Biden started out as one of the youngest senators in U.S. history and spent 36 years representing Delaware on Capitol Hill. In 2008, he was chosen as President Barack Obama’s running mate and spent eight years as vice president.
In 2020, Biden reached the long-awaited pinnacle of his career by clinching the Democratic presidential nomination after unsuccessful attempts in 1988 and 2008, and then defeated Trump in the general election.
Biden launched his re-election campaign in April 2023, saying it was not the time to be “complacent” because Trump had already said he would run again on the Republican ticket.
While questions about his age (he is the oldest sitting president at 81 and would be 86 at the end of a second term) plagued his campaign from the start, they came to a head after the CNN debate in late June. Biden called his performance a “bad night” but faced growing calls from within his own party for him to step down.
Biden’s withdrawal marks the first time in 50 years that a sitting president has chosen not to run again.
In March 1968, with Americans divided over the Vietnam War, Lyndon B. Johnson shocked the nation when he announced on television that he would “neither seek nor accept the nomination of my party for another term as your President.”
“But let men everywhere know, however, that a strong, confident, vigilant America stands ready tonight to seek an honorable peace — and stands ready tonight to defend an honorable cause — whatever the cost, whatever the burden, whatever the sacrifice that duty may demand,” Johnson said from the Oval Office, the same setting as Biden’s big moment Wednesday.