President Joe Biden stated on Friday that he would have defeated President-elect Donald Trump if he had not ended his reelection campaign in July. Also, Biden said Vice President Kamala Harris would’ve beaten Trump as well.
Harris lost to Trump in the November election.
Biden took questions from reporters at the White House on Friday, including one about his decision to drop out of the race over the summer:
REPORTER: Mr. President, do you regret your decision to run for reelection? Do you think that that made it easier for your predecessor to now become your successor?
BIDEN: I don’t think so. I think I would’ve beaten Trump, could’ve beaten Trump. And I think that Kamala could’ve beaten Trump, would’ve beaten Trump. It wasn’t about– I thought it was important to unify the party. And when the party was worried about whether or not I was going to be able to move, I thought, even though I thought I could win again, I thought it was better to unify the party. And I had– it was the greatest honor in my life to be president of the United States. But I didn’t want to be one who caused a party that wasn’t unified to lose an election. And that’s why I stepped aside. But I was confident she could win.
Biden stepped aside weeks after delivering a disastrously meandering debate performance against Trump in late June.
During the debate, he stumbled over his response to a question about the national debt. He ended his response by saying, “We finally beat Medicare.”
The president’s performance alarmed party insiders, who launched a pressure campaign to force Biden to step down. He eventually relented, and Harris took over.
