Former President Joe Biden said in a new interview that the timing of his pullout from the 2024 election wouldn’t have made a difference, suggesting that Kamala Harris’ loss to Donald Trump was inevitable. (Watch the video below.)
“Should you have withdrawn earlier?” the BBC’s Nick Robinson asked in the interview, shared Wednesday.
“I don’t think it would’ve mattered,” Biden replied. “We left at a time when we had a good candidate. She was fully funded.”
The former president said he and his administration were “so successful in our agenda” that it became hard for him to say, “I’m gonna stop now.”
“I meant what I said when I started,” he continued. “I’m preparing to hand this to the next generation. It’s a transition government. But things moved so quickly that it made it difficult to walk away.”
Biden said it was “the right decision” and “a difficult decision.”
Biden, who was dogged by concerns over his mental acuity in the campaign, dropped out of the race in July after a bumbling debate against Trump. He immediately endorsed Harris as the nominee. Trump grabbed critical swing states to oust the Democrats from the White House.
Robinson gave the former president another go at addressing the timing of his move.
“I don’t know how that would have made much difference,” Biden said.