Former President Joe Biden sat down for his first interview since he left office in January, and it didn’t take long for him to make several eye-opening admissions.
In an interview with the BBC, host Nick Robinson directly asked Biden if he “regrets” not withdrawing earlier to “give someone else a bigger chance” to defeat President Donald Trump.
The majority of the conversation focused on international commerce and diplomacy, but Robinson concluded by asking about the shocking moment Biden declared he would no longer pursue a second term with only three months left in the campaign.
When asked if he felt pulling out sooner would have made a difference and if he had any regrets, Biden answered emphatically “no” on both counts.
Below is a transcript of the exchange:
ROBINSON: I can hear your passion. I can here your anxiety that the world is changing the way it has. And for a long time you believed–. You said, “I’m the man who can stop Donald Trump.” And you did once. And in the end you withdrew from that election campaign at the last minute. It’s a question you know lots of people ask you, Mr. President. Did you leave it too late? Should you have withdrawn earlier, given someone else a bigger chance?
BIDEN: I don’t think it would have mattered. We left at a time when we had a good candidate, she was fully funded, and what happened was I had become–. What we had set out to do, no one thought we could do. And I’d become so successful on our agenda, it was hard to say, “Now I’m gonna stop now.” I meant what I said when I started, that I think I’m prepared to hand this to the next generation, the transition government. But things move so quickly that it made it difficult to walk away– to get–. And it was a hard decision. But–
NICK ROBINSON: Regrets, though?
BIDEN: No, I think it was the right decision. I think that the— well, It was just a difficult decision.
WATCH:
Beltway and legacy media outlets, as well as veteran political reporters, are increasingly covering scandals that rocked the Democratic Party ahead of the November election, shedding new light on issues that Republicans have long criticized and opposed.
“A full 4½ years after The Post’s bombshell series on Hunter Biden’s influence-peddling schemes, The New York Times has deigned to take an interest in the former First Son’s corruption,” the New York Post’s editorial board wrote in a piece that was highly critical of The New York Times for reporting on Biden corruption allegations years after other outlets had already uncovered reported details.
“We’d say the Times’ willingness to at long last cover this comes better late than never, but it only published the story now that it doesn’t remotely matter anymore,” the editorial board continued.
A former Biden White House official has claimed that his colleagues deliberately “gaslit” the public and journalists who raised concerns about former President Biden’s age and cognitive abilities.
Michael LaRosa, a longtime press secretary for former First Lady Jill Biden, revealed efforts within the administration to shield Biden from media scrutiny.
He also disclosed that his colleagues actively downplayed and dismissed data indicating that Biden’s poll numbers had stagnated leading up to the 2024 election.
Biden’s shaky debate performance in June escalated these worries, leading to mounting pressure for him to withdraw from the race.
“There are some things that are true. I mean, like the gaslighting, there was a lot of denial of the polling. And I will use the term gaslight because that’s what they were doing the campaign, former colleagues,” LaRosa told Palmeri.
Reports from The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and other outlets have since revealed that some of Biden’s closest advisers had expressed concerns about his health since the early days of his administration.
The former White House official also claimed that Biden’s team was “scared to death” about allowing the then-president to engage in impromptu and unrehearsed press conferences. He told Palmeri that Biden simply “couldn’t compete for the attention economy.”