WASHINGTON: At 1:45 p.m. Sunday, President Joe Biden's senior staff was notified that he would be dropping out of the race in 2024. At 1:46 p.m., that announcement was made public.
It was never Biden's intention to leave the race: Until he decided to step aside on Sunday, he was all in.
His campaign planned fundraisers and events and set up travel over the next few weeks. But even as Biden publicly dug in and insisted he was staying in the race, he quietly reflected on the disaster in recent weeks, on the last three years of his presidency and the scope of his half-century career in politics.
In the end, it was just the president's decision, and he did it quietly, from his vacation home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, ill with covid-19, the first lady with him as he talked it through with a small circle of people who have been with him in decades.
“This has got to be one of the hardest decisions he's ever made,” said Sen. Chris Coons, D-Delaware, the president's closest congressional ally, who spoke with him Sunday. “I know he wanted to fight and keep going and show that he could beat Donald Trump again, but as he heard more and more input, I think he wrestled with what would be best for the country,” Coons said in an interview with the Associated Press.
This story is based on interviews with more than a dozen people familiar with the president's thinking in the past weeks, days and hours as he made his decision. They spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss private discussions.
Decides to leave the race
It wasn't until Saturday night that Biden began to come to the conclusion that he would not run for re-election. He began writing a letter to the American people.
Biden had been off the campaign trail for a few days, isolated due to covid-19, when it all began to sink in — his diminished chances of defeating Donald Trump with so much of his party in open rebellion and trying to push him out of the race — for not to mention the persistent voter unrest over his age that was only exacerbated by the disastrous debate.
Biden was at his beach home with some of his and Jill Biden's closest aides: chief strategist Mike Donilon, adviser to the president Steve Ricchetti, White House deputy chief of staff Annie Tomasini and Anthony Bernal, senior adviser to the first lady.
On Sunday, his decision crystallized. He spoke several times with Vice President Kamala Harris, whom he would endorse. He briefed White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients and his longtime aide and campaign chair Jen O'Malley Dillon.
A small group of senior advisers from both the campaign and the White House gathered for the 1:45 p.m. call to convey Biden's decision, while his campaign staff released the message on social media a minute later.
“It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your President. And while it has been my intention to seek re-election, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country that I step down and focus solely on fulfilling my duties as president for the remainder of my term, Biden wrote.
Just about half an hour later came his public vote of support for Harris. It was a carefully choreographed strategy intended to give full weight to the president's initial statement, and to punctuate the moment before moving on to the next step.
“Today I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be our party's nominee this year,” Biden said in another post on X. “Democrats — it's time to come together and beat Trump.”
Elizabeth Alexander, Jill Biden's communications director, said, “until the final hours of the decision that only he could make, she was supportive of whatever path he chose.
“She is his biggest believer, champion and always by his side, in that reliable way only a spouse of nearly 50 years can be,” Alexander said.
About the debate
It's not like things were going well before the June 27 debate. In an August 2023 poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, a whopping 77 percent of American adults said Biden was too old to be effective for four more years. Not only did 89 percent of Republicans say so, but so did 69 percent of Democrats.
And it hadn't gotten any better in April, when more than half of American adults thought Biden's presidency was hurting 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 could bring voters with him if he came out, told people about his record, explained it to them. Talked to them. Looked them in the eyes.
He had a lifetime of experience that told him if he stuck with it, he would overcome. His campaign was so confident, in fact, that they arranged to bypass the Commission on Presidential Debates to set up a series of meetings with Trump under a new set of rules.
That resulted in the June 27 debate that set Biden's case in motion. Biden gave nonsensical answers, stopped mid-sentence and appeared to stare blankly in front of an audience of 51 million people. Perhaps most painfully for other Democrats, Biden did not go after Trump's countless lies about his involvement in the violence surrounding the Jan. 6, 2021 uprising, abortion rights or immigration.
Biden and his team blamed the night on so many different things. He had a cold. He was jet lagged. He needed more sleep. That night, the door opened for his company to push him out.
A slow acceptance
Publicly and privately, Biden fought to stay in the race. He worked to convince voters he was up to the task for four more years. He was frustrated by Democrats going public against him, but even more angry by the leaks and anonymous sources who relayed how even former President Barack Obama and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi were working to get him out.
It looked like he had won a couple of times; the chorus of naysayers seemed to die down. He had some well-received speeches interspersed with so-so TV interviews and one day of an extended news conference where he showed a nuanced grasp of politics but also made some gasping mistakes.
But the doubts did not disappear.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer eventually invited top Biden staffers to a July 11 meeting to talk about their concerns. It did not go well. Senators expressed their concerns, and almost none said they had confidence in the president. But even afterward, Schumer was worried it wouldn't get to Biden.
After the meeting, Schumer called Democratic House Leader Hakeem Jeffries, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former President Obama. Schumer decided that day to request a meeting with Biden.
At a July 13 meeting in Rehoboth, Schumer told Biden he was there out of love and affection. And he delivered a personal plea focused on Biden's legacy, the country's future and the impact the top of the ticket could have on congressional races — and how that could potentially affect the Supreme Court. On the same day, the assassination attempt on Donald Trump came.
Schumer told the president he didn't expect him to make an immediate decision, but he hoped Biden would think about what he said, according to a person familiar with the conversation.
Biden replied, “I need another week,” and the two men hugged.
Sunday's decision
It was full speed until Biden pulled the emergency brake.
The president had lost his voice, but he was recovering well and his doctor had sent an update to the public shortly before 1:00pm on his condition. His small circle decided to release the statement on X on Sunday, rather than let it leak for days before he was ready to address the nation, which he is expected to do sometime early this week.
Much of his campaign was blindsided, and it was clear how little had changed after he dropped out. For hours after the announcement, Biden's campaign website reflected that he was still running and KamalaHarris.com still redirected to Biden's site.
Even Harris' statement announcing her intention to succeed Biden was sent from “Joe Biden for President.”
After the public announcement, Zients held a call to senior staff and sent out an email and spoke to members of Biden's cabinet, stressing to them that nothing had changed in terms of the board's work and that the administration still had a lot of work to do, according to two people with knowledge of the message. And 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 more proud to work for President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and the American people — together with all of you, the best White House team in history. There is so much more to do — and as President Biden says , “there's nothing America can't do — when we do it together.”
Vermont Sen. Peter Welch, a Democrat who had called for Biden to bow out, was gardening with his wife when the news broke and said he was temporarily “stunned.” Senators texted each other asking if it really happened.
Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal was at an event in his state, and there was spontaneous applause when it was announced to the crowd that Biden would not be running, he said.
There was a sense of excitement and energy in the audience “that has been completely missing,” Blumenthal said.
“There was also, let's be honest, a sense of relief,” he said. “And a sense of reverence for Joe Biden.”
By Sunday night, Biden as president had formally changed to Harris as president.
O'Malley Dillon told campaign staff that their jobs were safe as the operation shifted to a campaign for Harris.
