WASHINGTON (AP) — At 1:45 p.m. Sunday, President Joe Biden’s senior staff was informed that he was withdrawing from the 2024 primary race. At 1:46 p.m., that message was made public.
Biden never intended to leave the race: until he decided to withdraw on Sunday, he was fully in the race.
His campaign was planning fundraisers and events and travel for the coming weeks. But even as Biden publicly stood his ground and insisted he was in the race, he was quietly reflecting on the disaster of the past few weeks, the last three years of his presidency and the scope of his half-century in politics.
Ultimately, it was the president himself who made the decision, quietly, from his vacation home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, sick with COVID-19, accompanied by the first lady, as he discussed it with a small circle of people who have been with him for decades.
“This is probably one of the toughest decisions he’s ever made,” said Sen. Chris Coons, a Delaware Democrat and the president’s closest ally in Congress, who spoke with him Sunday. “I know he wanted to fight and continue to show that he could beat Donald Trump again, but as he heard more and more comments, I think he was wondering what would be 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 thinking in the final weeks, days and hours as he made his decision. They spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity about private discussions.
DECIDE TO QUIT THE RACE
It wasn’t until Saturday night that Biden began to realize he wouldn’t run for reelection. He then began writing a letter to the American people.
Biden had been off the campaign trail for a few days, isolated because of COVID-19, when it all began to come crashing back to him: his increasingly slim chances of defeating Donald Trump with much of his party in open rebellion, seeking to push him out of the race, not to mention voters’ lingering 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, counselor to the president Steve Ricchetti, White House deputy chief of staff Annie Tomasini and Anthony Bernal, a senior adviser to the first lady.
On Sunday, his decision came to fruition. He spoke several times with Vice President Kamala Harris, whom he endorsed. He informed White House chief of staff Jeff Zients and his longtime aide and campaign manager, Jen O’Malley Dillon.
A small group of senior campaign and White House advisers gathered for the 1:45 p.m. call to relay Biden’s decision, while his campaign team posted the announcement on social media a minute later.
“It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as President. And while I intend to run for re-election, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and country for me to step aside and focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term,” Biden wrote.
Half an hour later, he publicly voted for Harris. It was a carefully orchestrated strategy designed to give weight to the president’s initial statement and score a point before taking the next step.
“Today, I want to offer my full support and endorsement to Kamala to be our party’s nominee this year,” Biden said in another message on X. “Democrats, it’s time to unite and defeat Trump.”
Elizabeth Alexander, Jill Biden’s communications director, said: “Until the final hours of the decision, which only he could make, she supported him, whatever path he chose.
“She is his biggest believer, his champion and always by his side, in that trusting way that only a wife of almost 50 years can be,” Alexander said.
ABOUT THIS DEBATE
It’s not as if things were going well before the June 27 debate. In an August 2023 poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, 77% of American adults said Biden was too old to be effective for four more years. Not only did 89% of Republicans say that, but 69% of Democrats said it as well.
And things didn’t get any better in April, when more than half of American adults said Biden’s presidency had hurt the country on issues like the cost of living and immigration.
But Biden had insisted — to himself, to the nation, to his supporters — that he would be able to win over voters if he got out there, if he talked to people about his record, if he 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 persisted, he would overcome the ordeal. His campaign was so confident that it staged a sleight of hand before the Commission on Presidential Debates to arrange a series of confrontations with Trump under a new set of rules.
That’s what led to the June 27 debate that triggered Biden’s downfall. Biden gave nonsensical answers, stopped mid-sentence, and appeared to stare into space in front of an audience of 51 million people. Perhaps most distressing to other Democrats, Biden failed to address Trump’s myriad lies about his involvement in the violence surrounding the January 6, 2021 insurrection, abortion rights, or immigration.
Biden and his team attributed that night to many different factors. He had a cold. He was jetlagged. He needed more sleep. That night opened the door for his party to kick him out.
SLOW ACCEPTANCE
Publicly and privately, Biden was fighting to stay in the race. He was trying to convince voters that he was up for another four years. He was frustrated by Democrats’ public statements against him, but even more angry about leaks and anonymous sources who reported how even former President Barack Obama and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi were working to get him to drop out.
He seemed to have won several times, but the chorus of skeptics seemed to have fallen silent. He gave a few well-received speeches, interspersed with mediocre television interviews and a long press conference in which he demonstrated a nuanced understanding of politics but also made a few gaffes that left one speechless.
But the doubts have not disappeared.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer finally invited Biden’s top aides to a meeting on July 11 to discuss their concerns. It didn’t go well. Senators expressed concerns, and almost none of them expressed confidence in the president. But even after that, Schumer worried that he wasn’t taking his concerns to Biden.
After the meeting, Schumer called House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former President Obama. Schumer decided that day to request a meeting with Biden.
At a meeting in Rehoboth on July 13, Schumer told Biden he was there out of love and affection. He also made a personal appeal focused on Biden’s legacy, the future of the country and the impact the front-runner could have on congressional elections — and how that could potentially affect the Supreme Court. That same day, Donald Trump was the victim of an assassination attempt.
Schumer told the president he did not expect him to make an immediate decision but hoped Biden would think about what he said, according to a person familiar with the conversation.
Biden responded, “I need another week,” and the two men embraced.
SUNDAY DECISION
Everything was moving full steam ahead until Biden pulled the emergency brake.
The president had lost his voice, but he was recovering well, and his doctor sent a report to the public shortly before 1 p.m. on his condition. His inner circle decided to release the statement on X on Sunday, rather than letting it leak for several days before he was ready to address the nation, which he is expected to do early this week.
Much of his campaign was caught off guard, as evidenced by how little changed after his withdrawal. For hours after the announcement, Biden’s campaign website said he was still running, and KamalaHarris.com continued to redirect to Biden’s page.
Even Harris’ statement announcing her intention to succeed Biden was sent as “Joe Biden for President.”
After the public announcement, Zients held a call with senior officials, sent an email and spoke with members of Biden’s Cabinet, emphasizing that nothing had changed in terms of governance and that the administration still had much work to do, according to two people familiar with the message. The president also made personal calls.
“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 greatest White House team in history. There is still so much to do – and as President Biden says, ‘there is nothing America can’t do – when we do it together.’”
Vermont Sen. Peter Welch, a Democrat who had called for Biden to step down, was gardening with his wife when the news broke and said he was momentarily “stunned.” Senators texted each other wondering if this was really happening.
Connecticut Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal was attending an event in his state and there was spontaneous applause when it was announced to the crowd that Biden would not run, he said.
There was a sense of excitement and energy in the crowd “that was completely missing,” Blumenthal said.
“It was also, let’s be frank, a sense of relief,” he said. “And a sense of reverence for Joe Biden.”
On Sunday night, presidential candidate Biden officially replaced Harris as president.
O’Malley Dillon told his campaign staff that their jobs were safe as the operation shifted to campaigning for Harris.
___
Associated Press writer Farnoush Amiri contributed to this report.
