Updated
Jul 25, 2024, 12:10 PM
Published
Jul 25, 2024, 12:10 PM
WASHINGTON - President Joe Biden on Wednesday addressed the nation for the first time since dropping his reelection bid, saying he decided to forgo personal ambition to save democracy in a sedate Oval Office speech that contrasted with the rough-and-tumble campaign.
Shortly before his speech, Republican Donald Trump laid into Democratic rival Kamala Harris in his first rally since she replaced Biden atop the ticket, signaling a bare-knuckled campaign ahead of the Nov. 5 election.
Trump branded Harris a "radical left lunatic" after she had dominated the campaign the two previous days with withering attacks on Trump that pointedly raised his felony convictions, his liability for sexual abuse, and fraud judgments against his business, charitable foundation and private university.
Biden said he believed he deserved to be reelected based on his record during his first term, but his love of country led him to step aside.
"I decided the best way forward is to pass the torch to a new generation. That is the best way to unite our nation," Biden said, after previously resisting calls from within the party that he quit the race following his poor showing in a June 27 debate with Trump.
Biden, at 81 the oldest president in U.S. history, was greeted by cheers, applause and music in the Rose Garden after the address, as his staff had converged on the White House for a viewing party.
Trump was less kind, saying in a post on his Truth Social platform that Biden's speech was "barely understandable and sooo bad!"
After spending much of the campaign attacking Biden as old and feeble, Trump, 78, now faces a younger candidate in Harris, 59, the first Black woman and Asian American to serve as vice president.
Energizing many Democrats as potentially the first woman to take the White House, Harris quickly consolidated the ...