US President Joe Biden, in his first TV interview since withdrawing from this year’s presidential election, said that he acted under pressure from fellow Democrats and out of a determination to see former US president Donald Trump beaten.
Explaining his shock exit in new detail, Biden said party colleagues standing for re-election feared he was damaging their chances as his age and mental abilities came to dominate the campaign.
Biden, 81, has kept a low profile since ending his second-term bid on July 21 after his flailing debate performance against Trump triggered a slow-burning Democrat revolt against him.
Photo: AFP
In a short TV interview, recorded at the White House last week and broadcast on Sunday, the president appeared frail, but cogent, again admitting he failed in the debate, but stressing that health-wise he has “no serious problem.”
“A number of my Democratic colleagues in the House [of Representatives] and Senate thought that I was going to hurt them in the [election] races,” Biden said. “I was concerned if I stayed in the race, that would be the topic you’d be interviewing me about.”
He singled out former House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi, a party heavyweight whose refusal to explicitly back his campaign was seen by many as pivotal.
“You’d be interviewing me about why did Nancy Pelosi say [something] ... I thought it’d be a real distraction,” Biden said. “A critical issue for me still is — not a joke — maintaining this democracy. I have an obligation to the country to do what is the most important thing we can do, and that is we must, we must, we must defeat Trump.”
Biden said he was proud of his record on jobs, investment and the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic — and vowed to campaign hard for US Vice President Kamala Harris, who has replaced him on the ballot.
“I’m going to do whatever Kamala thinks I can do to help most,” he said.
Democrats’ hopes of winning have soared since Biden’s withdrawal, as Harris enjoys a surge in support that has left Trump and the Republicans struggling.
The outgoing president said he had expected to serve only one term when he won in 2020, but that he had been persuaded to push for a second.
“I thought of myself as being a transition president — I can’t even say how old I am. It’s hard for me to get it out of my mouth, but things got moving so quickly, it didn’t happen,” he told CBS’ Robert Costa.
As Harris holds huge rallies in swing states, Trump’s light schedule has come under scrutiny, and it was his running mate, J.D. Vance, who blitzed the Sunday morning political talk shows.
Appearing on CNN, ABC and CBS, Vance fielded questions about childcare, asylum seekers and abortion.
In one testy exchange with CBS’ Margaret Brennan, Vance complained that she had asked “six questions about abortion.”
“I’m still trying to get a clear answer,” Brennan retorted.
He also claimed that Harris was the one “calling the shots” in the Biden administration.
“If she’s not calling the shots, Dana, who is?” he told CNN’s Dana Bash.
Biden in his CBS interview warned that Trump was “a genuine danger to American security.”
“Mark my words, if he wins ... watch what happens,” he said. “He’s a genuine danger to American security. Look, we’re at an inflection point in world history ... and democracy is the key.”
He added that he was “not confident at all” of a peaceful transfer of power if Trump lost a second time.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
RSS