President Joe Biden said Wednesday night that he reveres the presidency, “but I love my country more.”
“It’s been the honor of my life to serve as your president, but in defense of democracy, which is at stake, I think it’s more important than any title,” Biden said in a televised address from the Oval Office.
To “save democracy,” Biden said, he is “passing the torch.”
“My fellow Americans, it’s been the privilege of my life to serve this country over 50 years,” said Biden, who was first elected to the Senate in 1972 and served as Barack Obama’s vice president from 2009 to 2017.
Biden promoted his record in the speech, which lasted about 10 minutes, and said he would push “Supreme Court reform” during the remaining six months of his presidency.
“I’m going to call for Supreme Court reform because this is critical to our democracy,” the president said, without specifying what he meant.
Reports last week said Biden would push term limits for Supreme Court justices. He has previously resisted efforts in his party to “pack” the high court by adding justices to the current nine to achieve favorable outcomes for liberals.
Biden first announced in a social media post Sunday in the form of a letter that he was dropping his re-election bid before the Democratic National Convention, which convenes Aug. 19.
He also announced Sunday that he is supporting Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic presidential nominee.
However, Biden didn’t specify either Sunday or Wednesday night why he is stepping aside, despite widespread concerns about his declining mental acuity.
Her critics inside and outside the party have noted that Harris dropped out of the 2020 Democratic primaries before a single state voted, so low was she in the polls. Biden picked the California senator and former state attorney general as his running mate even though she essentially called him a racist during a debate.
“I’d like to thank our great Vice President Kamala Harris,” Biden said Wednesday night. “She’s experienced, she’s tough, she’s capable. She’s been an incredible partner to me and a leader for our country.”
Biden, with Harris as his running mate, went through a primary process limited by the Democratic Party in which he won more than 90% of the delegates, defeating Rep. Dean Phillips, D-Minn. He lost only the contest in America Samoa.
Yet, despite his repeated calls to “save democracy” from the threat of former President Donald Trump, now the Republican nominee, Biden is endorsing Harris for the party’s nomination after she won no primary votes.
The Associated Press has reported that, by its count, Harris already has enough convention delegates to win Democrats’ nomination.
Earlier Wednesday, Harris didn’t attend Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to a joint meeting of Congress, citing a prior engagement in Indianapolis.
The president, who will turn 82 just two weeks after Election Day on Nov. 5, also sought to reassure the public that he plans to finish his four-year term.
“Over the next six months, I’ll be focused on doing my job as president,” Biden said during the prime-time Oval Office address. “That means I’ll continue lowering costs for hardworking families, grow our economy. I’ll keep defending our personal freedoms and our civil rights, from the right to vote to the right to choose.”
This last point was a reference to abortion on demand, which the Supreme Court ended in 2022 with its Dobbs ruling overturning Roe v. Wade.
Democrats could face a predicament in replacing Biden on the ballot in several states because a patchwork of state laws determines what a political party must do to substitute someone else as its presidential nominee.
Battleground states such as Georgia and Nevada have procedures under which a presidential candidate may withdraw from the ballot. Wisconsin allows it to occur only in case of death.
The Biden-Harris campaign began to unravel after the president’s poor debate performance against his opponent, Trump, whom he defeated in 2020. Gradually, more Democrats went public in calling for Biden to drop out because of declining mental faculties.
Biden was initially defiant and vowed to remain in the race. But that changed after he canceled campaign stops in Nevada on July 17 after testing positive again for COVID-19 and traveling to his vacation residence in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, where he stayed out of public view.
Earlier this year, special counsel Robert Hur issued a report on Biden’s possession of classified documents from his years as vice president and senator, characterizing him as “elderly” and “struggling” with memory loss.
It made no sense to bring the case to a jury, Hur concluded.
“The great thing about America is here, kings and dictators do not rule, the people do,” Biden told Americans.
Ken McIntyre contributed to this report, which is a developing story that may be updated.
Reprinted with permission from The Daily Signal by Fred Lucas.
You’re worried about our democracy so you want to overhaul the Supreme Court because you don’t agree with some of their decisions? That’s not democracy and you’re a hypocrite. You preach about the rule of law but yet you violate it on a regular basis. Do you think people don’t see this? You’re a liar . You don’t care one bit about our democracy or this country and its people. What you care about is holding on to power. You radicals need to be removed from office forever. You’ve done more damage to this country in 3 and a half short years than any administration in our history. Well, I have news for you. Come November, we will make our message clear at the ballot box that you and your kind are no longer welcome to serve this country and its people.
One must ask themselves does this man (Biden) know what he is really saying and doing. He makes no sense to me. Of course, in my mind and opinion she (Harris) is no better.
Democrats want the Supreme Court to be another part of the legislative branch and just rubber-stamp every part of their agenda , the constitution be damned. If anyone believes the democrats’ rationale for “reforming” the Supreme Court is for the “sake of democracy” and “for the good of the country”, I have a bridge in Brooklyn I’d love to sell you.
Anothet non informative and mostly misleading public address as Biden cannot put to thoughts together.
It would be nice to have term limits for Congress and the Senate instead of the supreme court justices.
Isn’t it funny how those commies always call our Republic a Democracy? So, the idiot-in-chief says we need reform of SCOTUS? Only because commies are getting their way in the court.These two clowns (Biden and Harris) need to be put a long ways away from the seat of power, and they need to take the other Marxists, Maoists, Socialists and assorted other far leftists with them when they go.Folks, I consider this the single most important election of our lifetime. If the democrats use the Washington State, NY, IL or CA election cheating method this year, they will win by a small margin. Technically, they didn’t win anything, but their people forged enough ballots, and committed enough fraud, to look like they won. We have to make sure EVERYBODY VOTES! If everyone votes, no matter what excuse they may have, we will win by a margin enough to cancel out their fraudulent ballots and count tampering. If we lose, everything is going to change, for the worse. When I was a kid, there were commercials showing the elderly eating dog food by the can, with the discussion centering around them not being able to afford real food (it was being blamed on republicans by the democrats who ran the commercial). That is our future if we allow a democrat to win this election for the presidency. For that matter, let’s give the republicans in Congress a total win, and one last chance to do it right for us (they failed last time to do what they said they would).
Over the course of 54 years, Joe Biden has done little or nothing positive.
Kamala Harris did NOT go through a primary process. She could not be named as his running mate until he was confirmed as the official nominee for the Party at the convention. He was not, and now never will be, nominated at the convention. Therefore, cackling Kamala has NOT received a single vote. Not this year, and not in 2020. So much for preserving Democracy. Oh, by the way, we are a Constitutional Republic. Not a democracy.
Instead of reforming the Supreme Court, we need to show more RESPECT for the Supreme Court! I would not be apposed to an age limit for members of the Supreme Court. Many private corporations have mandatory age limits for members of their board of directors. Age 70 or 75 would not be unreasonable. I am beyond this age and know that sadly my brain is showing signs of age.