U.S. President Joe Biden addressed the nation on Wednesday for the first time since dropping his reelection bid, saying he decided to forgo personal ambition to save democracy in a sedate Oval Office speech that contrasted with the rough-and-tumble campaign.
Shortly before the speech, Republican Donald Trump laid into Democratic rival Kamala Harris in his first rally since she replaced Biden atop the ticket, signaling a bare-knuckled campaign ahead of the Nov. 5 election.
Trump branded Harris a “radical left lunatic” after she had dominated the campaign the two previous days with withering attacks on him that pointedly raised his felony convictions, his liability for sexual abuse, and fraud judgments against his business, charitable foundation, and private university.
Momentum grew for the Harris campaign as NBC News said on Thursday that former President Barack Obama planned to endorse Harris as the Democratic presidential candidate soon.
“Aides to Obama and Harris also have discussed arranging for the two of them to appear together on the campaign trail, though no date has been set,” it said.
Biden said he believed he deserved to be reelected based on his first-term record, but his love of country led him to step aside.
“I decided the best way forward is to pass the torch to a new generation.
“That is the best way to unite our nation,” Biden added, after having resisted calls from within the party to quit the race after his poor showing in a June 27 debate with Trump.
Biden, at 81 the oldest president in U.S. history, was greeted with cheers, applause, and music in the Rose Garden after the address, as his staff had converged on the White House for a viewing party.
Trump was less kind, saying in a post on his Truth Social platform that Biden’s speech was “barely understandable and so bad!”
After spending much of the campaign attacking Biden as old and feeble, Trump, 78, now faces a younger candidate in Harris, 59, the first Black woman and Asian American to serve as vice president.
Energising many Democrats as potentially the first woman to take the White House, Harris quickly consolidated the party behind her, as her campaign said it had raised 126 million dollars since Sunday, with 64 per cent of donors making their first contribution of the 2024 campaign.
