Biden insisted that he was the best candidate for the office when withdrawal from the presidential race seemed inevitable. Now he wants to go down in history as a selfless president.
It’s eleven minutes that set the tone for a long farewell. US President Joe Biden has about six months left in office. After that, it’s over, a career in politics that has lasted more than half a century is over.
For the 81-year-old, this is not a voluntary departure. This is also clear in the emotional speech that the Democrat addressed to the nation in the White House study, the famous Oval Office, and which sounds like a farewell speech. He speaks calmly, seriously, and acts statesmanlike: Joe Biden is shaping his political legacy – and warning against Donald Trump without mentioning his name once.
Biden clung to power
The path to this historic speech was undignified. It must have been humiliating for the Democrat that his party had turned against him in recent weeks. That an entire country was debating whether the 81-year-old was mentally capable of running as a presidential candidate again. That every slip of the tongue, every word read incorrectly from the teleprompter made the front pages. This is probably not how the full-blooded politician Biden, a proud man, imagined the end of his career.
He announced his withdrawal from the presidential race in a shabby letter at the weekend. It was published on social media. He also announced his support for his deputy Kamala Harris there – unusual for the statesman Biden, who usually announces important things to the people of the country in speeches. But he was stuck in his house in Rehoboth Beach with a corona infection, a few hundred meters away from the vast Atlantic Ocean. His speech to the nation in the White House is now a kind of fresh start. Biden wants to save his legacy.
Biden: America’s soul is at stake
The Democrat does not say a word about the debate of the past few weeks – about his health, the pressure from his party. Instead, he says he wants to “pass the baton to a new generation.” Personal ambition should not be more important than saving democracy. “I ran for president four years ago because I believed and still believe that the soul of America was at stake. The essence of who we are was at stake. And that is still the case.” America is an idea – and it is stronger than tyrants or dictators.
The name Trump does not appear in Biden’s speech – but the Republican presidential candidate is undoubtedly meant. The Republican has never accepted his election defeat to Biden in 2020. And he leaves no doubt that after the election on November 5th he will only accept a result that he likes.
Anyone who speaks to Trump supporters at the Republican Party convention in Milwaukee last week will realize that these people are certain that a Democratic victory in the presidential election can only be explained by electoral fraud. They are preparing to overturn an unpopular election result. The convention is almost exclusively attended by Trump supporters. The Republicans are Trump’s party.
Trump doesn’t want to be “nice”
The contrast between Trump and Biden became clear in another way on Wednesday evening (local time). The Republican spoke at a campaign event in North Carolina shortly before Biden’s speech. And after the assassination attempt on him, he was back to his old self. “They say something happened to me when I was shot, I became nice,” he says. But that’s not true – he’s not nice. What he means by that is immediately clear. Trump insults and humiliates his political opponents. “It wasn’t a good speech, the look, the tone, the voice, everything,” the 78-year-old finally said on breakfast television on Thursday about Biden’s speech.
Biden often speaks quietly and mumbles a little. During his speech in the Oval Office, he also stumbles a few times over the words given to him by the teleprompter. But he delivers a solid performance. The 81-year-old is probably hoping that his slip-ups will fade into the background in the coming weeks and that the country will concentrate on his vice president and the likely replacement candidate of the Democrats, Harris. Biden himself will probably want to focus on advancing his political goals as far as possible in the time remaining.
Presidents are not kings
Biden, who represented the state of Delaware in the US Senate for decades, was vice president under Barack Obama and finally president himself, now hopes to be remembered as a selfless leader who stepped down for the good of the nation. He sees himself in a tradition with George Washington, the first president of the USA. He ruled the country from 1789 to 1797. He declined a third term and withdrew from politics. Washington was no longer quite fit at the time either – and he wanted to make a point: Unlike the kings in Europe who die on the throne, presidents step down when the time comes.
“George Washington showed us that presidents are not kings,” Biden said in his speech. History will show what will prevail in memory: Biden’s withdrawal – or that he was pressured to do so for weeks.