In his first sit down interview since leaving office, former President Joe Biden told the BBC that he doesn’t know “that it would have made much difference” if he had withdrawn from the 2024 presidential race earlier.
“I don’t think it would have mattered,” Biden said on BBC Radio 4’s Today program Political Thinking with Nick Robinson. “We left at a time when we had a good candidate. She was fully funded.”
Biden also addressed criticism of his decision to run for reelection, given that he had previously indicated that he would be a transitional president.
“What happened was … what we had set out to do, no one thought we could do. I had become so successful, our agenda. It was hard to say, ‘Now I’ll stop now.’ I meant what I said when I started, that I’m preparing to hand this to the next generation, the transition government. But things moved so quickly that it made it difficult to walk away, and it was a hard decision.”
Biden dropped out in July, giving the Democratic party just a few weeks to anoint a new presidential nominee in advance of the convention in August.
Asked if he had regrets, Biden said, “No, I think it was the right decision.” Biden paused a bit and sai, “It was just a difficult decision.”
Robinson asked, “But you shouldn’t have taken it earlier?”
“Well, I don’t think so. I don’t know how that would have made much difference.”
Biden and his wife, former First Lady Jill Biden, are scheduled to appear on ABC’s The View on Thursday.
His appearances come before the publication later this month of Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson’s new book Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover Up And His Disastrous Choice To Run Again.
Biden also slammed his successor’s tenure, calling Donald Trump‘s Oval Office confrontation with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky “beneath America.”
The former president also warned about the decline of NATO.
“I’m worried that Europe is going to lose confidence in the certainty of America and the leadership of America and the world, to deal with not only NATO but other matters that have a consequence,” Biden said.
The post Joe Biden Tells BBC He Doubts It Would Have “Made Much Difference” If He Withdrew From 2024 Race Earlier: “I Don’t Think It Would Have Mattered” appeared first on Deadline.
