Biden 'Thinks' He Could Have Beaten Trump If He'd Stayed In Election
President Joe Biden 'thinks' he could have beaten Donald Trump in the 2024 election if he'd stayed in the race, the Washington Post reports, citing 'people familiar' with his 'thinking.'
Biden notably withdrew from the race in July after a disastrous debate performance, after former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and others pressured him to drop out. Democrats swapped in Kamala Harris, who suffered a major loss to Trump.
Biden and some of his aides still believe he should have stayed in the race, despite the rocky debate performance and low poll numbers that prompted Democrats to pressure him to drop out. Biden and these aides have told people in recent days that he could have defeated Trump, according to people familiar with their comments, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations. Aides say the president has been careful not to place blame on Harris or her campaign. -WaPo
That said, many Democrats blame Harris's loss on Biden's insistence that he stay in the race as long as he did, despite the fact that he's been an obvious vegetable for most of his presidency.
"Biden ran on the promise that he was going to be a transitional president, and in effect, have one term before handing it off to another generation," Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) told the Post. "I think his running again broke that concept — the conceptual underpinning of the theory that he would end the Trump appeal, he would defeat Trumpism and enable a new era."
Despite securing the Democratic Party nomination, pressure to drop out began to increase after a series of embarrassing gaffes - including introducing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
HAHAHA Holy sh*t Biden just introduced Zelensky as "President Putin" 🤣😂💀 pic.twitter.com/vAdGXcMQgD
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) July 11, 2024
And in February, he said that he met former French President François Mitterrand at the 2021 G7 summit, despite the fact that Mitterand died in 1996.
WATCH: Joe Biden says he recently met with “Mitterand from Germany.”
— Raheem. (@RaheemKassam) February 5, 2024
Mitterand was the FRENCH President between 1981 and 1995.
He also died in 1996. pic.twitter.com/W0YPBDp69n
Yes, he definitely should have stayed in the race...