Reuters White House Correspondent explains Biden's decision to step aside | ABS-CBN News
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00:00.0
President Biden is remaining president, so he's not stepping down from that job, he's not stepping down as commander-in-chief.
00:06.2
The Constitution would have, or does, lay out that the vice president takes over if the president is incapacitated or steps down or is not able to continue with his job.
00:17.0
That is not what's happening here.
00:18.8
Biden is stepping aside as the Democratic presidential candidate, and that's what's leaving a hole to fill.
00:26.2
His endorsement of Harris means she will now have political momentum to take over at the top of the ticket.
00:33.2
But the decision has to be made by Democratic delegates who will gather at the convention in August.
00:39.1
And those delegates up until today were committed to Joe Biden because he won their support by being the Democratic candidate who won all of the Democratic primaries in the 50 states and additional U.S. territories that had races.
00:56.2
The fact that he is now not going to be the nominee will open the Democrats to some criticism, and you're already seeing that on the Republican side, that President Biden being sort of jettisoned aside is seen as undemocratic with a small d.
01:13.5
And that's a weakness that Republicans, I expect, will try to exploit.
01:19.0
It's both surprising and not surprising in that ever since President Biden's very poor debate against former President Biden,
01:26.2
President Trump, about three weeks ago, there have been calls from people within the Democratic Party for him to step aside.
01:33.1
And that included lawmakers, it included donors, it included people from the public.
01:38.1
And there's been sort of a wave of response to that from within Biden's circle.
01:44.7
Initially, after those first calls, he looked vulnerable.
01:47.4
And then it seemed like he was effectively pushing back against those calls and being defiant and saying he was going to stay in.
01:56.2
Last week, on Thursday, I reported with other colleagues that he was going back to soul-searching about those calls and thinking over whether he wanted to stay in.
02:06.1
And then on Friday, just a couple days ago, his campaign chair, General Malley Dillon, said on television that he was staying in the race and committed to running.
02:15.0
So it's been ups and downs.
02:17.0
And then he dropped this announcement on X, formerly known as Twitter, in a letter on Sunday afternoon.
02:22.8
So the last president who said...
02:26.2
He stepped away from a re-election campaign while he was in office that I can think of was Lyndon B. Johnson decades ago.
02:34.6
So it's the first time that this has happened since then.
02:37.4
It's absolutely historic for that reason.
02:40.0
And it's also historic what some of the reasons are for it.
02:44.5
President Biden is beloved within the Democratic Party.
02:48.8
I think that's something that's really important to underscore.
02:52.0
He is seen as someone who got lots and lots done.
02:56.2
He's now one term in office in terms of legislation, in terms of, from Democrats' perspective anyway,
03:03.5
restoring the U.S. reputation on the world stage after the four chaotic years of President Trump's tenure in office.
03:11.7
And so he is someone who is absolutely well-liked and supported by his colleagues.
03:19.4
But then they sort of, many of them, turned on him.
03:23.2
And they turned on him not because...
03:25.4
I think it's fair to say...
03:26.2
They don't like the man or the candidate, but they saw how he did in that debate and were just worried that he couldn't, A, beat Trump, or B, do a second four-year term.
03:39.0
And that's what ended up generating or leading to this decision.
03:43.7
It's probably good news for many in the Democratic Party who just felt like they were leading or hurtling towards a major loss, both of the White House and of Congress.
03:56.2
If President Biden had stayed at the top of the ticket.
03:58.3
That's the type of polling that many Democrats were talking about having seen.
04:03.3
That said, it's complicated because it's only a few weeks before the convention, and now there's not a presumptive nominee.
04:11.6
So certainly President Biden's endorsement of Kamala Harris to become the nominee is a big boost for her.
04:18.1
And others, including former President Bill Clinton, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, are backing her as well.
04:24.6
But there will...
04:26.2
There will no doubt be at least some kind of a process and some kind of a fight.
04:32.1
The question in the coming days that we'll be reporting on and watching is how much of one.
04:37.2
For Republicans, it's complicated as well, at least for a little while, because President Trump, former President Trump, won't know exactly on whom to unleash his fire, as it were.
04:48.8
And I think that the Republicans were all teed up to run against President Biden.
04:56.2
And no doubt had a lot of ads prepared about that debate.
05:00.5
And now none of those things are going to matter.
05:03.0
It's going to all be about who replaces him.
05:05.6
So they will be a little bit in limbo as well until the Democratic Party selects a nominee.
05:11.4
I think it's most likely that it will become Vice President Harris because she has the name recognition.
05:18.4
She has her time now in office as vice president.
05:21.2
She has the backing of important people in the party, particularly the president.
05:26.7
So it's sort of her nomination to lose.
05:30.5
But as I wrote in a story that published on Sunday, she doesn't have support from all corners of the party.
05:38.4
There are still concerns about her.
05:39.9
There are concerns about her sort of shaky performance at the beginning of her tenure as vice president.
05:45.1
She didn't run a very good campaign for the Democratic nomination in 2019.
05:51.8
And of course, she will also have to deal with the U.S.
05:56.2
history of racism and sexism, which are are going to be factored in to her campaign
06:02.5
and are things that she will have to challenges that she will have to face.
06:07.5
I'll be watching for how Harris consolidates support.
06:11.2
I'll be watching for whether or not the money that had apparently dried up for President Biden
06:17.4
now starts flowing again from donors for Vice President Harris and for the Democratic Party.
06:23.3
I'll be watching for how.
06:26.2
You know who supports her and who calls for more of an open convention.
06:31.4
And I think, though, and I've sort of underscored this point already, it has to be more than
06:36.3
just people saying we need an open convention where several candidates run.
06:40.7
There have to be candidates who run against her.
06:42.5
And that'll be a political calculation.
06:45.4
Does Governor Gavin Newsom or Governor Gretchen Whitmer decide they want to challenge her
06:51.4
or do they decide they want to support her?
06:56.2
think about running in twenty twenty eight if she loses in twenty twenty four.
07:00.7
Those are all individual decisions that those people will have to to make.
07:05.7
And that's what we'll be watching closely.
