Former President Joe Biden has claimed his decision to drop out of the 2024 election was “difficult” because his presidency was “so successful.”
Biden made the claims in a new BBC interview that was broadcast on Wednesday.
It marks Biden’s first broadcast interview since exiting the White House.
Biden told the left-wing British outlet that his administration was “so successful on our agenda.”
He continued by explaining that this alleged “success” made it a “hard decision” to step down from the presidential race.
However, Biden added that he doesn’t think “it would have mattered” if he had dropped his re-election bid at an earlier time.
“Things moved so quickly that it made it difficult to walk away,” Biden said.
“And it was a hard decision.
“I think it was the right decision.
“I think that… it was just a difficult decision.”
Biden claimed that Vice President Kamala Harris was a “good candidate” for the Democrats in the 2024 presidential election.
who replaced him on the Democratic ticket after he dropped out of the race in July 2024 following a disastrous presidential debate performance.
President Donald Trump soundly defeated Harris in the general election, winning the popular vote and sweeping all seven battleground states.
“She [Harris] was fully funded,” Biden told the outlet.
“Um, and what happened was, I had become what we set out to do, no one thought we could do, and become so successful.
“Our agenda was hard to say, now I’m going to stop now.
“I meant what I said when I started, that I think it’s, I’m prepared to hand this to the next generation, the transition government.”
Regarding Trump’s time in the White House, Biden told the foreign news outlet:
“I’ll let history judge that…
“I don’t see anything that was triumphant.”
The former president also defended his economy during the interview.
He claimed that he police ensured that the American economy was “growing … the stock market was way up … we were expanding our influence around the world.”
Biden notably oversaw a spate of economic hurdles during his sole term.
His “Bidenomics” policies triggered skyrocketing inflation, which peaked at 9.1% in June 2022.
The crisis left Americans grappling with high prices.
In addition, energy prices rose significantly during Biden’s term as the administration prioritized reducing domestic oil and gas extraction.
At the same time, Biden was leading a massive push to subsidize a variety of failed green energy projects.
The economy was viewed as one of the most important issues for voters ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
One of the largest stains on the ex-president’s term was when the Biden administration withdrew U.S. military forces from Afghanistan in August 2021.
The handling of the situation was broadly viewed as a disastrous operation.
On August 26, 2021, days after the U.S. military began to withdraw from the country, an ISIS-K member detonated a suicide bomb at the Kabul International Airport in Afghanistan.
The explosion killed 13 U.S. military service members and 160 civilians.
Biden also led a massive push to embed far-left ideology in the federal government, such as “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) programs.
A The Economist/YouGov poll published in January found that 45% of voters approved of ending DEI programs in schools and the government, while just 40% disapproved.
