Former President Biden suggested in a new interview that he doesn’t regret the timing of his withdrawal from the 2024 presidential race, saying he doesn’t think an earlier decision would have changed the outcome of the election.
Biden, who ended his campaign in July 2024, was pressed on criticism that he should have stepped aside sooner to allow more time for a replacement candidate to be chosen and build their own campaign.
“I don’t think it would have mattered,” Biden told the BBC in a sit-down interview taped Monday.
“We left at a time when we had a good candidate. She was fully funded,” Biden said, referring to Vice President Kamala Harris, who was elevated to the top of the ticket when Biden stepped aside, and inherited the massive Biden-Harris campaign war chest.
Biden reflected on the difficult decision to run for a second term, before ultimately deciding to step aside.
“What happened was… what we had set out to do, no one thought we could do, and [we’d] become so successful in our agenda, it was hard to say, ‘Now, I’m going to stop now,’” Biden said.
“I meant what I said when I started, that… I’m preparing to hand this to the next generation, the transition government, but things moved so quickly that it made it difficult to walk away,” Biden continued. “And it was a hard decision.”
On whether he has regrets, Biden said, “No, I think it was the right decision. I think that the, well, it was just a difficult decision.”