With Joe Biden's decision to withdraw from the presidential race, the outgoing US president is ending his long political career. Of course, he did not make this decision alone. It was received after many appeals from former presidents, senators, congressmen and important figures of the Democrats and all of this resulted in him announcing through a letter, his resignation from seeking a second presidential term.
According to a report by the Wall Street Journal, for some time the leadership of the Democrats expressed concern, both about the age and the mental acuity of the 81-year-old president. During his tenure, those concerns grew from whispers among allies who thought they were catching Biden on a bad day to deafening noise, with many of his own allies calling for him to retire after the appearance. of the June 27 debate.
The critical poll
In addition to the appeals of the Democrats, decisive for his decision was, according to Reuters, a poll in which he seemed to lose in all six critical states (swing states) for the election of the president of the USA.
At the same time, it collapsed in states such as Virginia and Minnesota, for which the Democrats did not plan to spend enough money as they considered them "safe". As Reuters concludes, "Biden changed his decision (and resigned) after carefully studying the data."
The moment of resignation
On Sunday, Biden announced he was withdrawing from the presidential race, an unprecedented step that leaves Democrats without a candidate less than four months before Election Day. In a second post, Biden endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, but it remains to be seen if voters will rally behind her.
How the Democratic Party came to the brink of nominating an obviously flawed candidate is a story of allies willing to turn a blind eye, Biden advisers who worked to dispel doubts about his mettle, and a party apparatus that shut out alternative candidates .
The result is a miscalculation that has Democrats scrambling to mount an uncertain relaunch of their campaign against former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee who has just finished a unifying party convention fueled by the failed assassination attempt on July 13.
"I'm really concerned about what they haven't told us these months," Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D., Texas) said in an interview. "I'm still concerned about that — that, for whatever reason, this overprotective, staged kind of business seems to have denied not only the American people at large an understanding of the president's current situation, but other elected officials as well."
The resignation of Joe Biden
Limited contact
Both congressmen and senators said their contact with Biden has been very limited over the past three years. They typically say "When we saw him on TV or at a bill signing ceremony."
Senior department officials have complained bitterly about not having enough contact with the president and his team, who concentrated power in the White House and directed much of the administration's political activity.
Given that it's not unusual for cabinet members to want more access to the president than they have, some officials have described Biden as unusually distant from the rest of his administration — or, as one former administration official put it, as not involved in the "practical work of governance".
Chris Lu, a former White House cabinet secretary under former President Barack Obama, said the monthly pace of meetings between the president and cabinet secretaries is not unusual, and that the cabinet typically interacts more with its senior staff. White House.
When the problems started
At first, Biden's slip-ups seemed like isolated incidents, like when the president said the wrong country, or appeared confused, or fell three times climbing the stairs on Air Force One. Biden, after all, has described himself as a "blunder machine." People who know him said he was never as effective an orator as Obama or others.
At the Group of Seven summit in England in June 2021, the first of Biden's presidency, he repeatedly confused Syria and Libya in a press conference. The blunders drew little attention as world leaders focused on celebrating Biden's arrival. "It's great to have a US president who is a member of the club," French President Emmanuel Macron said after meeting with Biden.
Confusion at the G-7 phone call
In the spring of 2022, some European officials began to notice that something might be amiss. Biden was chairing an online video call on Ukraine with G-7 leaders, a tightly scheduled discussion where Biden called on one leader at a time to make a statement. Sitting in the Oval Office, Biden at one point forgot to turn off his microphone, then lost his train of thought and began mumbling, according to an official on the call.
He appeared to lose track of which leader should speak next and then tried to end the call without calling on Macron. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stepped in to remind him, and Macron took his turn.
National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said Sunday that Biden "assembled a global coalition to respond to Russia's invasion of Ukraine" and that "the results speak for themselves. How Joe Biden conducted a Zoom call is a ridiculous anecdote."
By the summer of 2022, some in Washington began commenting on the president's condition, privately and—on rare occasions—publicly. Some administration officials observed that Biden struggled to generate energy at White House events, especially those later in the day, and often appeared to struggle to read the telecoder.
When he announced his candidacy
On April 25, 2023, Biden announced that he would seek re-election, stating, "Let's get the job done." A few days earlier, an NBC News poll had found that 70% of voters — including more than half of Democrats — did not want another Biden nomination, with about half citing his age as a key reason.
Biden, asked about his age that month, said: "Biden's not the only one who can run: 'I can't even say the number—I don't get it.' He added that voters "will judge whether I have it or not. I respect that they will consider it carefully."
Party barriers
The Democratic National Committee, along with state Democratic parties, also put up hurdles for other candidates. At Biden's urging, the DNC moved the South Carolina primary, which Biden said was aimed at giving black voters a stronger voice. Some Democrats saw the move as tipping the scales for Biden, given that it was the first nominating contest he won in 2020.
In Florida, the state party voted to file only Biden's name with election authorities. The Wisconsin state party also submitted only Biden's name before the state Supreme Court intervened.
Many Democrats sharply criticized anyone who proposed alternatives to Biden. At a Center for American Progress event, Minnesota Democratic Gov. Tim Walz — co-chairman of the DNC's rules committee — dismissed concerns about Biden's age. "Everyone who says, 'I wish he was younger.' I wish I was thinner!” he said. "There is a responsibility on us not to lose this."
"That worried me"
In 2024, problems began to mount
Less than three weeks into the new year, top Democratic and Republican lawmakers met with Biden at the White House to discuss how to push a new tranche of aid to Ukraine through Congress.
Biden spoke so softly that some had trouble hearing him - he read from notes to emphasize obvious points - he paused for long periods of time and sometimes closed his eyes for so long that some in the room wondered if he was in tune.
"It started to look like he was struggling more physically and mentally, probably since late last year, to a greater degree than he had been before," Smith, the Washington congressman, said in an interview, referring to the Jan. 17 meeting. as well as at the Christmas party. "That worried me a little."
White House denials
Meanwhile, the White House continued to strongly deny there was a problem, dismissing concerns about Biden's age as a Republican talking point. The Journal interviewed half a dozen senior administration officials this spring after learning that Biden had shown troubling signs of aging during private meetings. Officials denied that Biden's acuity had diminished and insisted he was as sharp as ever.
Those discussions included an hour-long interview in May with a senior administration official who, sitting in a West Wing office, disputed the notion that Biden's health was a problem and insisted that Biden was working harder than the staff.
When supporters raised concerns on the campaign trail about Biden's slip-ups, the campaign responded by pointing out that Trump was only a few years younger than Biden.
The calls of the Democrats and the resignation of Biden
The botched assassination attempt, which killed a Trump supporter in the crowd, immediately turned the page, focusing attention instead on the political divisions dividing the nation. Biden said the assassination attempt was "contrary to everything we stand for as a nation." While the historic moment set the tone, it did not eliminate the debate. In his Oval Office speech, the president repeatedly promised that the country would resolve its differences in the "battleroom"—rather than at the polls. Within days, calls for Biden's withdrawal resurfaced.
As the Republican convention unfolded, there was a show of unity in the party. Some in the audience even wore bandages on their ears in support of former President Donald Trump's injury, as top congressional leaders pushed to delay the procedural vote on Biden's nomination.
Donors began an all-out revolt, telling Schumer and Jeffries that it would become increasingly difficult to raise money not only for the presidential race but also for congressional campaigns if Biden did not retire.
Trouble grew when the White House announced on Wednesday that Biden had tested positive for the coronavirus, forcing him to cut short a campaign stop in Nevada. His quick return to Delaware did nothing to help the growing furor.
Over the weekend, the White House continued to adamantly deny that there were any discussions about Biden dropping out of the race. Biden, who is still recovering from Covid, said he planned to return to the campaign trail next week. After all this, the American president issued the statement in which he resigns from his re-election race.
Source: protothema.gr