President Joe Biden said Democratic lawmakers pressured him to withdraw from the November election because they feared he would damage their own political campaigns.
Speaking to CBS’ Robert Costa in an interview aired on Sunday, Biden led with that reason when asked about the intraparty push for him to step aside.
“What happened was a number of my Democratic colleagues in the House and Senate thought that I was going to hurt them in the races,” Biden said.
Meanwhile, he reiterated his belief that he stood a strong chance against former President Donald Trump — a point he stuck to when initially defending his bid to stay in the race.
“Look, polls we had showed that it was a neck-and-neck race, it would have been down to the wire,” he told Costa.
But Biden said that amid the backlash against him, he began to worry that his health would dominate election discussions for any Democratic candidate.
“And I thought it’d be a real distraction,” the president said.
Biden didn’t name any specific senators or House representatives who raised their concerns with him. But multiple reports said that a significant number of Democratic heavyweights, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, had sought to pull the president off the ballot.
Biden’s remarks to Costa, his first televised sit-down interview since dropping out, stood in stark contrast to his earlier, dogged commitment toward staying in the race.
For weeks, Biden had adamantly defended his decision to seek reelection in the wake of his lackluster debate performance on June 27, which had thrown Democratic leaders into a panic. (Biden told Costa on Sunday that the debate was a “really, really bad day” because he was sick.)
Only “the Lord Almighty” could compel him to drop out, he had said. Then, in a dramatic turnaround, the president announced in late July that he would step aside, saying the decision was “in the best interest of my party and the country.”
Vice President Kamala Harris has now secured the Democratic presidential nomination, and Biden told Costa that he fully intends to campaign for her despite the earlier concerns about his health.
“I have no serious problem,” he said.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent outside regular business hours by Business Insider.
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