President Biden announced on Sunday that he will suspend his 2024 re-election campaign due to mounting pressure from Democratic colleagues in Capitol Hill, top donors, and Hollywood stars following a disastrous debate performance last month.
The surprising announcement came as more and more Democrat lawmakers had started to publicly urge Biden to step aside. Reports also suggested that the party’s leadership was trying to persuade the 81-year-old Biden that he would not be able to win in the November general election against former President Trump, the 2024 GOP nominee who Biden defeated four years ago to win the White House, Fox News reported.
Biden tested positive for COVID-19 on Wednesday, news that came after multiple TV interviews and campaign appearances where the president assured everyone that he was still in the race. However, these interviews did not reassure supporters and gave critics, including those on the left, more evidence that Biden was no longer fit for the job.
Last week at the NATO summit in Washington D.C., Biden delivered a powerful welcome address to world leaders. The summit was an opportunity for him to demonstrate his capability to continue his current term and to show his eagerness and ability to lead the nation for another four years.
Fox added:
For a time, it seemed Biden could survive the surge of calls for him to quit the race after House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced that they backed Biden’s bid.
But Biden, who has long been known for a propensity to commit gaffes, continued to stumble. His missteps included a glaring error on the world stage at the NATO summit. While speaking on live television, Biden referred to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as “Putin,” name-checking Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose invasion of Zelenskyy’s Ukraine has precipitated more than two years of hellish war.
Concerns about whether Biden would conclude his campaign continued to be the leading political narrative as we approached the weekend. However, two major events unfolded almost simultaneously – the failed attempt on Trump’s life during his rally in western Pennsylvania on Saturday and Trump’s selection of Sen. JD Vance of Ohio as his vice presidential candidate on Monday at the Republican National Convention. These developments momentarily paused the excitement surrounding Biden for a short period.
However, the announcement by Rep. Adam Schiff, the Democratic candidate for Senate in California, on Wednesday to urge Biden to cease his campaign, coupled with news that leading Democrats like Schumer, Jeffries, and former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi had open discussions with Biden, swiftly escalated the political turmoil surrounding the president.
