President Biden privately regrets dropping out of this year’s presidential election, claiming he could have defeated President-elect Trump if he hadn’t been pushed out by his own party.
Biden and some of his aides have boasted to confidantes “in recent days” that the president should have stayed in the race and could have won a second term, according to the Washington Post, citing multiple anonymous sources familiar with the conversations.
Instead, the 82-year-old succumbed to Democratic Party elites’ pressure to withdraw from the race in July due to low poll numbers and his rocky June 27 debate performance, in which he gave incoherent answers and appeared to stumble over his words.
Vice President Kamala Harris replaced Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket, but she was easily defeated by Trump, who will be sworn in for a second term in the White House on January 20.
“Aides say the president has been careful not to place blame on Harris or her campaign,” the news organization reported.
However, during a CBS News Sunday Morning interview in August, the president all but admitted that former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi led the charge because Democrats in the House and Senate were concerned that he would jeopardize their reelection chances.
In September, he told “The View” that he was confident he could have defeated Trump in November.
Many Democrats blame Harris’ loss on Biden’s refusal to drop out sooner.
“Biden ran on the promise that he would be a transitional president, serving one term before handing it over to the next generation,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut) told The Washington 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.”
Some of his closest advisers, without faulting Biden, admit that his old-school governing style did not always fit with modern politics.
“The president has been operating on a time horizon measured in decades, while the political cycle is measured in four years,” Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, told the publication.
In recent weeks, Biden has admitted to some of the numerous gaffes he’s made in office, including that he “screwed up” during the debate and was “stupid” for not taking credit for the pandemic relief checks his administration sent out in 2021, as Trump did as president in 2020.
Biden and his aides have also acknowledged that the administration could have done a better job of lifting Americans’ spirits during the pandemic.
According to The Washington Post, Biden has been telling confidantes that he should not have appointed Merrick Garland as attorney general because the former US appeals court judge was too aggressive in prosecuting his son Hunter.
And Garland appears to have taken longer than Biden to prosecute Trump for the Jan. 6 riots, which were eventually dropped.
