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He also announced he would take to the campaign trail to help Vice President Kamala Harris.

President Joe Biden called himself a “transition president” in his first interview after dropping out of the race, saying he exited because of fears within his party that he could cost Democrats seats in Congress.

In a pre-recorded interview that aired on “CBS Sunday Morning” with Robert Costa, Biden said he exited the race because he feared being a “distraction” for down-ballot candidates — and specifically name-dropped Nancy Pelosi.

“What happened was a number of my Democratic colleagues in the House and Senate thought that I was gonna hurt them in the races. And I was concerned if I stayed in the race, that would be the topic,” Biden said, adding that he expected to face questions about Pelosi’s role. “I thought it’d be a real distraction.”

The president said it was this — combined with his belief that he was a “transition president” — that ultimately helped him make his decision to end his reelection bid. It came after a disastrous debate performance triggered dozens of Democrats to call on Biden to pass the torch, especially as he dipped in the polls against former President Donald Trump.

“When I ran the first time, I thought of myself as being a transition president. I can’t even say how old I am. It’s hard for me to get it outta my mouth,” Biden said. “But things got moving so quickly, it — didn’t happen.”

He also announced a campaign tour in Pennsylvania with Gov. Josh Shapiro, who was on Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate shortlist.

          • the_crotch@sh.itjust.works
            65·
            4 months ago

            The civilian death toll in Gaza is about on par with how many the US killed in Afghanistan under Obama. However, Biden isn’t personally signing off on every drone strike, so as gross as it feels to try and make an objective comparison between these civilian crisises, I gotta go with Obama for the bigger bastard award.

              • the_crotch@sh.itjust.works
                5·
                4 months ago

                And you believe history will look back fondly on invading Afghanistan for no real reason and drone striking everything that moved for 20 years?

                • abracaDavid@lemmy.today
                  42·
                  4 months ago

                  Lol no. If anyone survives all of this, history isn’t going to be kind to us about pretty much anything we’ve done since WW2.

              • Apollo42@lemmy.world
                1·
                4 months ago

                Then I would suggest reading some American history, the nation was build upon a foundation of native corpses.

            • LotrOrc@lemmy.world
              12·
              4 months ago

              46000 Afghani civilians died in total. Israel has done four times as much as that in 10 months, all funded and signed off by Biden.

              Did you read the Lancet study?

        • LotrOrc@lemmy.world
          23·
          4 months ago

          Nah he just gives money to Israel so they can bomb every hospital, school, and an entire people off the face of the planet.

          And then says he is disappointed

          • the_crotch@sh.itjust.works
            21·
            4 months ago

            And we’re comparing him to Obama, who funded the civilian deaths in Afghanistan and signed off on them personally and was in a position to end the whole thing rather than just pull funding from it. Obama is the worst person of the two.

            • LotrOrc@lemmy.world
              11·
              3 months ago

              Biden is entirely in the position to end things by just not supplying them weapons and money every damn week

              • the_crotch@sh.itjust.works
                11·
                3 months ago

                Israel isn’t reliant on our weapons. We could cut funding tomorrow and it’s not going to end this. Nothing we could do would end this short of declaring war on Israel ourselves.

                • LotrOrc@lemmy.world
                  11·
                  3 months ago

                  …? Where the fuck do you think they get their weapons? Why do you think the US has been approving billions of dollars of weapons sales to Israel per week for 10 months?

                  If the US stopped sending weapons Israel would have a week or two max of bombing left, using AMERICAN bombs

                  You’re just blatantly incorrext

  • aramis87@fedia.io
    832·
    4 months ago

    I’m okay with it. It’s really caught the Republicans and particularly Trump off-guard, especially since he locked in Vance in what turned out to be a too-early decision specifically because Biden waited until after the Republican convention to announce.

    He’s a good man and he’s been such an incredibly effective President and politician. I think his main failing - and it’s very much part of the way that he actually gets things done - is that they have all these successes but they never trumpet them through the media. He’s gotten a lot done, but no one knows about it.

    • lennivelkant@discuss.tchncs.de
      1·
      4 months ago

      He’s a product of a biased system. He was elected to the Senate in '72, over 50 years ago, and spent 36 years there. That long, during that time in a highly business-heavy state, would probably have been untenable for anything left of liberal. I’m not optimistic that anyone trying to be an effective politician in those circumstances for so long could have been much more progressive.

      Considering all that, he got a lot of good done. But like you say, it’s easy for the media to focus on the things that generate outrage. He wasn’t a saint by any measure, but he was a decent compromise at a time when the Democrats were scared of losing the moderate votes. Him being nominated for re-election is probably a product of the political inertia that sitting and eligible presidents are rarely swapped out instead of being put up for re-election (actually, is there any precedent at all?)

      Walz, by contrast, was in the House for twelve years, then governor for another five. That’s a third of Biden’s time in Congress, and much later too. I think it’s much more realistic for someone in his position to be and stay progressive, and I hope he helps pull the Overton Window to the left. I hope this election shows that there is a platform for progress, that Biden was an emergency measure for damage control and that handing the baton over to Harris and Walz was a step in the right direction.

      Of course, that hinges on Harris also driving a more progressive line than Biden did, instead of resigning to another term of mediocrity. She seems to signal as much, but whether that will be followed up with deeds remains to be seen.

  • Myxomatosis@lemmy.world
    654·
    4 months ago

    Joe Biden is a good man who really did the right thing here. That’s in addition to his other accomplishments.

    • VubDapple@lemmy.world
      21·
      4 months ago

      Trump can’t even comprehend Joe’s selflessness. Witness recent "fan fiction Trump has generated suggesting that Joe would take back the nomination for himself as though it was stolen from him. Trump cannot comprehend altruism.

    • abracaDavid@lemmy.today
      36·
      4 months ago

      I guess y’all don’t remember him loudly declaring “I’m not going anywhere!” directly after he blew it at the debate.

      He was forced out by the DNC. Pretty low bar for a hero.

      The best thing that Biden ever did was just not being Trump.

  • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
    362·
    4 months ago

    This is 100% normal.

    As we get to the point of “elderly” time seems to move fast for a number of reasons. Not only is a period of time a percentage of your age, and every day means tomorrow is a smaller percentage, we go on “autopilot” more because our brain figures by now we’ve seen the same thing so many times, you don’t need to be bothered thinking about what to do

    You’re just going about your day barely checked in, especially if your environment hasn’t changed.

    For 12 of the last 16 years, Bidens been in the White House. Before that he’s had decades of time in the Senate. I’m absolutely sure the last four years just flew by to him and he doesn’t know where the times gone.

    It’s 100% normal and too be expected of someone of his age.

    Which is why we need a fucking age limit on the presidency. Just because you don’t notice years going by doesn’t mean they aren’t.

  • macniel
    20·
    4 months ago

    I hope that he can enjoy a long life in retirements for he deserved it.

  • hark@lemmy.world
    614·
    4 months ago

    Seems to me like less of a torch passing and more of a torch taking, akin to taking the car keys from grandpa because he’s a danger when driving now. Not that I’m complaining, because things are looking a lot better with Harris at the helm.

    edit: anyone downvoting want to explain how I’m wrong? Biden insisted he was staying in the race over and over until his hand was clearly forced and now the blow is being softened with “actually I meant to drop out but things were moving too fast” even though there were multiple points he was being asked to drop (including after the debate) and he refused. Hell, he could’ve simply not run in the primary if he sincerely believed he was a “transition president” in the first place.

    • LotrOrc@lemmy.world
      31·
      4 months ago

      You’re not wrong. He’s trying to retcon everything and people are lapping it up for some reason