US President Joe Biden
Credit: Reuters Photo
As of Saturday night, President Joe Biden planned to stay in the 2024 presidential race, but then shocked his senior staff on Sunday afternoon by telling them that he was withdrawing, a source familiar with the matter said.
"Last night the message was proceed with everything, full speed ahead," the source told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity. "At around 1:45 p.m. today: the president told his senior team that he had changed his mind."
About minutes later, Biden made his bombshell announcement.
The decision came less than a month after Biden, 81, had a disastrous debate against Republican Donald Trump that raised questions about the mental acuity of the 81-year-old Biden.
A senior adviser said Biden came to his decision over the past 48 hours, after digesting large amount of data and polls that showed his path to victory largely out of reach.
After the debate, Biden began losing ground to Trump in battleground states, and his Biden campaign has been pursuing a razor-thin path to reelection.
The decision caught many White House and campaign staff off guard, with several expressing shock at the sudden turn of events.
The president made the announcement while recuperating from a bout of Covid-19 at his home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. The diagnosis came during a two-day trip to Las Vegas last week.
Nursing a cough, the 81-year-old Biden had spent the weekend stewing over Democratic pressure to force him to leave the race, aides said.
He had been particularly irked at former House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whom Biden advisers believed was orchestrating a pressure campaign to get him to stand down.
Hours before the shock announcement, the Biden campaign denied reports that he was planning to drop out.
"It is false. And I think that it is false to continue to try to gin up this narrative," deputy campaign manager Quentin Fulks told MSNBC's "The Weekend” on Sunday morning.
There were plenty of signs Biden had been thinking about pulling out for several days, with sources saying that the Democratic incumbent had been doing some soul-searching.