Days before officially withdrawing from the 2024 presidential race, President Biden declared in a media interview that the doctor’s findings would likely prompt him to reconsider running for a second term.
“If I had some kind of medical problem that became apparent,” Biden said in an interview with BET this month when asked if there was any reason for him to reconsider running for president in 2024. “If a doctor came to me and said, ‘You have this problem, you have that problem.’
After weeks of adamantly vowing that Biden and his campaign would continue the campaign, the president backed away on Sunday afternoon and shortly thereafter endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as his running mate.
“My fellow Democrats, I have decided not to accept the nomination and to focus my efforts on the duties of my presidency for the remainder of my term,” Biden wrote on Twitter on Sunday afternoon, announcing his support for Harris.
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President Biden salutes as he arrives at an event at the White House on November 27, 2023. (Michael Reynolds/EPA/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“My first decision as the party’s nominee in 2020 was to select Kamala Harris as my vice president, and it was the best decision I ever made. Today I fully endorse and support Kamala to be our party’s nominee this year. Democrats, it’s time to unite and defeat Trump. Let’s do it together,” he continued.
Biden’s health has long been a concern for conservatives, including former White House physician Ronny Jackson, but concerns snowballed after his disastrous defeat in last month’s debate with former President Trump. During his performance, Biden stumbled, trailed off and answered questions in a much more subdued manner than he had in previous public events, sparking a flurry of calls from traditional media and Democratic supporters for him to withdraw from the debate due to concerns about his mental health and age.
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Biden and his administration have denied that he is mentally healthy and has no illnesses such as dementia or Parkinson’s disease, but Biden’s brother said after Sunday’s announcement that the president’s health “certainly” influenced his decision not to seek reelection just weeks before the Democratic National Convention.
President Joe Biden’s brother, Frank Biden, in 2011. (Joe Cavaretta/Sun Sentinel/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
“I’m incredibly proud of my brother. Selfishly, I want to have him back to enjoy what time he has left. He’s a true hero. He puts country before himself. It may sound cliché in our cynical political environment, but neither my brother nor I are cynical. The goal remains the same: to defeat Trump and continue the job that Joe has done. My hope is that our party will rally around this heroic act,” Frank Biden told CBS News on Sunday.
Read: Biden withdraws from 2024 race via letter
Asked if his brother’s health was a reason for his withdrawal, he replied: “In my opinion, yes.”
Following Frank Biden’s comments, a source close to the Biden family told CBS that the president’s brother is an alcoholic and that his claims are “completely false.”
“Frank Biden suffers from alcoholism and has not spoken to his brother the President in several weeks. His statement that President Biden’s health was a factor in his decision is completely false,” a source told the outlet.
Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates recently complained that journalists were questioning President Biden’s mental capacity after the Hoare report noted his “poor memory.” (Getty Images)
When asked about the president’s health, White House press secretary Andrew Bates told Fox News Digital that it was not a factor in his decision to withdraw from the race.
“No, health status was not an issue,” Bates said Monday morning.
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Concerns about Biden’s mental health date back to the 2020 election, when Ronny Jackson, who served as White House physician under the Obama and Trump administrations, warned that Biden was mentally unfit to serve as president.
“As a citizen, not just as a candidate running for Congress but as a citizen of this country, I have watched Joe Biden on the campaign trail and I am concerned and convinced that he does not have the mental capacity, the cognitive capacity to serve as our commander in chief and our head of state,” Jackson, now a Republican congressman from Texas, said in 2020.
Maj. Gen. Ronny Jackson at the Capitol on April 24, 2018. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call)
Concerns have grown since then, especially when Special Counsel Robert Hur released his report in February this year investigating the president’s handling of classified documents after he left the vice presidency in the Obama administration.
According to the report, Heo called Biden a “caring, well-meaning older man with a poor memory” and said he would not recommend criminal charges against Biden for possessing classified materials after leaving the vice presidency.
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Biden’s mental health came under renewed scrutiny earlier this year when The Wall Street Journal published a story based on interviews with dozens of lawmakers and administration officials that described Biden as losing his mental edge and looking aged in meetings. The White House denounced the story as a partisan attack piece.
In addition to concerns about Biden’s mental health, he suffered two brain aneurysms in 1988 that nearly took his life.
Sen. Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, are surrounded by supporters and reporters at a rally in Wilmington, Delaware, in 1988. (Photoquest/Getty Images)
“Even if he survived, there was a chance that the parts of his brain responsible for language would have been damaged,” says a new New York Times book, “American Woman.” White House Correspondent Katie Rogers, reporting on the 1988 health scare;
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Amid growing concerns about Biden’s mental health, he has been mocked and criticized on social media for his public gaffes and missteps in recent months, including when former President Barack Obama grabbed him by the wrist and tried to escort him offstage at a fundraiser in Los Angeles in June; when Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni called Biden back to his position at a gathering of world leaders in Italy this summer after Biden took a few steps away from the group to give a thumbs up to parachutists; and a viral video of the president standing nearly motionless at a Juneteenth concert event at the White House.
President Obama grabs President Biden’s wrist at a fundraiser. (Christopher Gardner, via Storyful)
Criticism of the president’s age and intellectual ability began to erupt after Biden’s botched debate performance on June 27. Democratic elected officials and traditional allies in politics and the media worried that Biden could not beat Trump and called for him to drop out of the race.
But Biden and his campaign have repeatedly denied that he plans to withdraw from the election and refuted claims that his mental health has deteriorated.
Obama’s dragging of Biden off stage at a Los Angeles fundraiser is the latest example of an ally coaching the president.
“Joe Biden has made it very clear that he is in this race and is in it to win. Further, he is the presumptive nominee and has no plans to field a replacement candidacy,” said a campaign memo released just two days before Biden dropped out.
President Biden takes the podium during a debate with former President Trump at CNN Studios in Atlanta on June 27, 2024. (Kevin D. Lyles for The Washington Post via Getty Images)
Harris has garnered further support from prominent Democrats, including former President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, making her a leading candidate to succeed Biden.
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Reacting to the news of Biden’s withdrawal, President Trump slammed Biden as the “worst president” and said Harris would be an easier Democratic candidate to beat.
Vice President Kamala Harris speaks in Baltimore, Maryland on July 14, 2023. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)
“He’s the worst president in the history of our country,” Trump said in a phone interview with Fox News Digital on Sunday afternoon. “We’ve never had a worse president.”
“He’s unfit to be president,” Trump continued, “so I ask the question: Who’s going to run this country for the next five months?”
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Democrats are expected to formally nominate their presidential candidate next month.
Get the latest 2024 campaign updates, exclusive interviews and more on Fox News Digital’s Election Hub.
