President Biden says it's 'up to you, the American people' after drop out from 2024 election
President Biden gave an Oval Office address to the American people on Wednesday in which he explained his reasons for dropping out of the 2024 presidential election and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to be the Democratic nominee. Harris is expected to face former President Trump in the November election and is vetting candidates for vice president.
U.S. President Joe Biden, accompanied by his son Hunter Biden (2nd-R), Hunter's daughter Finnegan Biden (R), speaks during an address to the nation about his decision not to seek reelection in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2024 in Washington, DC. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
President Biden's tenure in the White House expires in January, and political insiders from both sides of the aisle believe the remaining six months of his lame-duck presidency will consist largely of the same routine and "absolutely nothing."
Former Democrat presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard, who represented Hawaii's 2nd Congressional District in the House from 2013 to 2021, said she sees little change coming Americans' way in the next six months, insisting Biden "hasn't been the one making decisions" on key issues all along.
"Clearly, President Biden hasn’t been the one making decisions on our country’s domestic and foreign policy for the last three and a half years," she said. "The same unelected people running the country with Biden as their figurehead will continue to do so for as long as he is in office and with Kamala Harris, if she’s elected."
Julian Epstein, an attorney and former chief counsel to Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee, told Fox News Digital he believes there is "almost nothing" Biden will be able to accomplish in the months and days before the inauguration.
"There is almost nothing that Biden can achieve in the next six months, other than treading water and maintaining the status quo," he said. "If the White House were smart, it would double down on its support for Israel and make clear that the Democrats understand moral clarity on fighting what is in effect the Ku Klux Klan on the banks of the Mediterranean."
American Majority CEO and founder Ned Ryun echoed Epstein's assessment, saying he believes there's "absolutely nothing" Biden will be able to accomplish in the shadows of Harris' presidential campaign.
"First, there’s no way anyone on either side of the aisle would want to push the envelope as they have their own re-elections to worry about," Ryan said. "[Senate Majority Leader] Chuck Schumer would never let anything overtly problematic come to the floor in the Senate because it’s a terrible map already; he doesn’t need to make it even harder for them to try and hold majority."
"So Biden will achieve precisely nothing, except via executive orders, as he’s beyond a lame-duck president and shouldn’t even still be in office," he added.
Fox News Digital's Kyle Morris contributed to this update.
Former President Donald Trump slammed President Biden's Oval Office address on his exit from the 2024 presidential race, calling it a "terrible" speech while accusing Democrats of staging a coup against the president.
Trump reacted to Biden's remarks during "Fox & Friends" Thursday, arguing he left more questions than answers Wednesday night on the abrupt end of his presidential campaign.
"I think it was a coup. They didn't want him running. He was way down in the polls, and they thought he was going to lose," Trump said. "They went to him and they said, you can't win the race, which I think is true, unless I did something very foolish, which I wasn't going to do, and I think he was so far down and they said, 'You're not going to win, and you're not in great shape, and you did poorly in the debate.' I think the debate started everything."
"I know a lot of people on the other side, too, that they went, and they forced him out between Pelosi and Obama and some others that you see on television. It was interesting," he continued. "I'd watch them on television and they act so nice. ‘Oh, yes, we loved you. We loved you behind the scenes.’ I know for a fact they were brutal."
https://www.foxnews.com/category/person/mark-kelly
Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., who has been floated as a possible choice to become Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate on the Democratic presidential ticket, told HuffPost on Wednesday that he would vote in favor of the pro-union legislation known as the Protecting the Right to Organize Act.
Kelly’s lack of full commitment to the PRO Act, "has stood as a possible barrier to him becoming Democrats’ vice-presidential nominee, since labor unions are a crucial part of the Democratic coalition," the outlet reported.
Speaking to HuffPost on Wednesday, Kelly said, “Unions loom large in our life, and I’m supportive of the PRO Act."
“I would have voted for it on Day 1,” he added of the bill. “I would vote for it today. I am, like a lot of legislation, working to make it better. But if it came to the floor today or any day going back to the day I was sworn in, I would vote for it.”
FIRST ON FOX: Texas Democratic Congressman Vicente Gonzalez declined to answer when asked this week whether Vice President Kamala Harris did a "good job" as the "border czar" overseeing President Biden’s immigration agenda.
"Do you think Kamala Harris did a good job as border czar?" Gonzalez, who represents Texas’ 34th Congressional District, was asked in a House office building on Tuesday.
"I don’t know that she was a border czar, was she a border czar?" Gonzalez asked, seemingly echoing media outlets attempting to walk back that job title description now that Harris is the presumptive Democratic nominee for president.
"She was a border czar, a couple years ago, do you think she did a good job as the border czar?" Gonzalez was asked again.
This is an excerpt from an article by Fox News' Andrew Mark Miller.
President Biden publicly addressed the nation on Wednesday night for the first time after announcing Sunday that he had withdrawn from his pending re-election.
He cited things he has done since being inaugurated — like battling COVID-19 and trying to help the country recover from what he called the "worst economic crisis since the Great Depression."
Biden also said the election is up to the "American people," just a moment after he gave a slight endorsement to Vice President Kamala Harris as his successor.
"In just a few months, the American people will choose the course of America’s future. I made my choice. I’ve made my views known," Biden said from the White House. "I would like to thank our great vice president, Kamala Harris. She is experienced, she is tough, she is capable. She’s been an incredible partner to me and a leader for our country.
"Now the choice is up to you, the American people. When you make that choice, remember the words of Benjamin Franklin hanging on my wall here in the Oval Office, alongside the busts of Dr. King and Rosa Parks and Cesar Chavez."
Vice President Harris' record of backing a bail fund for Black Lives Matter convicted protesters is at the forefront of law enforcement minds as she attempts to paint herself as a law-and-order candidate.
"Let's be clear about something: If Kamala Harris becomes the next president of the United States, she will be an unmitigated disaster for public safety in this country," Joe Gamaldi, the national vice president of the Fraternal Order of Police and an active Houston Police Department lieutenant, told Fox News Digital.
"She has loudly and proudly supported bail reform and has even donated and encouraged other people to donate to a fund that helped get murderers, rapists, people who were shooting people in the streets, out on bail," he said. "We're not talking about helping bail out the mom who stole a candy bar from the store to help feed her kids; we're talking about violent criminals."
Labor activist Dolores Huerta endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for president Thursday, according to a report from Axios, giving the new presumptive Democratic nominee an influential boost in the early stages of the campaign.
Huerta is expected to campaign for Harris on Thursday at an even in Phoenix, Arizona with campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez, the report notes, with the duo heading to a predominately Hispanic region in the critical swing state.
"I've known Kamala Harris for a long time — and I've seen firsthand how she fights relentlessly for Latino communities, working families, and for every American," Huerta said in a statement announcing the endorsement. "Today, I'm thrilled to endorse Vice President Harris to be our next president of the United States, because I know she'll be our fierce champion in the White House."
(Evan Vucci/AP Photo/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
President Biden publicly addressed the nation on Wednesday night for the first time after announcing Sunday that he had withdrawn from his pending re-election.
He cited things he has done since being inaugurated — like battling COVID-19 and trying to help the country recover from what he called the "worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.
"Biden also said the election is up to the "American people," just a moment after he gave a slight endorsement to Vice President Kamala Harris as his successor.
"In just a few months, the American people will choose the course of America’s future. I made my choice. I’ve made my views known," Biden said from the White House. "I would like to thank our great vice president, Kamala Harris. She is experienced, she is tough, she is capable. She’s been an incredible partner to me and a leader for our country."
Read the full story by Scott McDonald on Biden's oval office address.
GovTrack, an organization that tracks congressional voting records, confirmed to Fox News Digital it had removed a 2019 web page that ranked Kamala Harris as that year's "most liberal" U.S. senator sometime within the last two weeks.
The self-described "government transparency website" scored Harris as the "most liberal compared to all senators" in 2019, outranking Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren at the time. But the web page with the ranking, which was widely covered in news reports during the 2020 election, was recently deactivated.
The link now displays a "Page Not Found" message. The Internet Archive shows the page was deleted sometime between July 10 and July 23, with some on X claiming the page was still up on July 22.
President Biden announced his decision to suspend his campaign and endorse Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee on July 21. Harris announced in the early hours of July 23 that she had secured enough delegates to lock up the nomination at the DNC next month.
Former President Donald Trump slammed President Biden's Oval Office address on his exit from the 2024 presidential race, calling it a "terrible" speech while accusing Democrats of staging a coup against the president.
Trump reacted to Biden's remarks during "Fox & Friends" Thursday, arguing he left more questions than answers Wednesday night on the abrupt end of his presidential campaign.
"I think it was a coup. They didn't want him running. He was way down in the polls, and they thought he was going to lose," Trump said. "They went to him and they said, you can't win the race, which I think is true, unless I did something very foolish, which I wasn't going to do, and I think he was so far down and they said, 'You're not going to win and you're not in great shape, and you did poorly in the debate.' I think the debate started everything."
This is an excerpt from an article by Fox News' Bailee Hill.
House Republicans are questioning whether Vice President Kamala Harris was aware of any signs of cognitive decline in President Biden before his performance in last month’s presidential debate prompted similar concerns among the wider public.
"I don’t see how anybody in the president's inner circle could not have known about his cognitive decline," House Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, told Fox News Digital when asked about Harris.
McCaul, who’s met with Biden twice since he took office in January 2021, said, during the second meeting earlier this year, the president "didn’t seem to quite comprehend things very well."
"It was very noticeable to the members of the meeting. There was something — maybe he was just having a bad day," McCaul said.
Other GOP lawmakers were more pointed in their criticism of Harris, pointing to reports she and Biden had been together in small group settings, including one-on-one lunches.
"If you look at video from six months ago, three months ago, when she continued to appear before large groups of people and say, ‘The president’s fine, he's doing great,’ you know, they were all in on this," Rep. Scott Fitzgerald, R-Wis., said. "As a result of that, you know, we find ourselves in the really strange position of not knowing whether or not he can fulfill his duties."
Harris announced Sunday she would be running for president after the 81-year-old Biden dropped out of the race.
Fox News Digital's Elizabeth Elkind contributed to this update.
Former President Barack Obama privately supports Vice President Kamala Harris' candidacy for president and will soon give her a public endorsement, NBC News reported Thursday.
A source familiar told the outlet Obama has been in "regular contact" with Harris and said he believes her campaign is "off to a great start."
NBC News also reported that Obama and Harris wanted to wait to announce the endorsement so it would stand out and have more impact.
"President Obama looks forward to helping Democrats up and down the ballot make the case to voters this fall," senior Obama adviser Eric Schultz told NBC News. "Our strategy will be based on driving impact, especially where and when his voice can move the needle."
Though Democratic leaders such as Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., as well as the Clintons and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., have offered Harris their endorsements, Obama has so far not done so.
Since leaving the Oval Office, Obama has typically held his endorsement card close to his chest. He endorsed former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in June 2016, while his endorsement of Biden in 2020 was only made days ahead of the Democratic National Convention.
Obama remained coy for a long while during the 2020 election about whom he would endorse, saying he would not back anyone during the primary. As Democratic contenders such as Pete Buttigieg, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont dropped out of the primary race and cleared a path for Biden, however, Obama finally endorsed his former veep in August of that year.
Harris was also a contender in the 2020 race, and had long had a friendship with Obama prior to her 2020 run, sparking media speculation that the 44th president could throw his support behind Harris instead of his VP.
Harris was among the first elected Democrats in the nation to endorse Obama’s first run for president in the 2008 election, snubbing Hillary Clinton in favor of the then-Illinois senator.
Harris was among the first elected Democrats in the nation to endorse Obama’s first run for president in the 2008 election, snubbing Hillary Clinton in favor of the then-Illinois senator.
Fox News Digital's Emma Colton contributed to this update.
Liberal media outlets have begun pushing a new talking point as the Democratic presumptive nominee, Kamala Harris, marches toward Election Day: The vice president was never President Biden's "border czar."
Outlets, including Time Magazine, USA Today, The New York Times, New York Daily News, and Newsweek, all echoed similar sentiments, suggesting that the unofficial title was "misleading" and inaccurate.
However, their claims are, at best, puzzling, considering that some of those same publications referred to Harris as the "border czar" or something similar in reporting that dates back to early 2021.
Axios drew particular criticism over a piece that seemed to contradict its own previous reporting, and it even updated its own story Wednesday by saying it "incorrectly" called her a border czar in the past.
"The Trump campaign and Republicans have tagged Harris repeatedly with the 'border czar' title — which she never actually had," reporter Stef Kight wrote on Wednesday.
Critics pointed out Axios reported in 2021 that Harris was "appointed by Biden as border czar." Another 2021 Axios report, by Kight herself, was headlined, "Biden puts Harris in charge of border crisis."
Left-leaning fact-checker PolitiFact also got in on the action, calling a Republican claim about her being the border czar "mostly false" and part of an effort to "link her" to her own administration's immigration policy.
Past reporting from media outlets across the political spectrum and comments from Biden himself appear to link Harris to the administration's immigration plans unambiguously.
Harris was tasked early on in the Biden administration with addressing the root causes of mass migration from Central and South America. That part of her portfolio has emerged as a cornerstone of GOP-led attacks against the de facto Democratic presidential nominee, as states across the country continue to struggle with the migrant crisis.
In a March 24, 2021, video, Biden said that Harris was "leading the effort to coordinate with Mexico and other Northern Triangle nations to address issues such as the surge of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border."
Fox News Digital's Nikolas Lanum contributed to this update.
Crowds descended on the nation's capital Wednesday to protest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit, and many wanted to know where Vice President Kamala Harris stands on the conflict now that she is the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.
"She's no different from Biden on this issue, she's no different from anybody else," Nikolai from Ohio told Fox News Digital. "We're going down to the lesser evil-ism. Trump will be 100%. She'll be 99.9, you know what I mean?"
Thousands of protesters swarmed the National Mall ahead of Netanyahu's address to Congress, calling for the foreign leader's arrest and an end to U.S. support for Israel's war in Gaza. Harris skipped Netanyahu's speech but is expected to meet privately with the Israeli leader at the White House.
Several people erected a large effigy of Netanyahu with devil horns, blood pouring from his mouth and a bomb clutched in his hand. Others chanted slogans like "Intifada revolution" and "from the river to the sea," danced, burned flags and waved posters with mugshot-style images of Netanyahu's face. U.S. Capitol Police made numerous arrests.
"I want Israel to be dismantled," Christine from Virginia said earlier in the day when asked what outcome she hoped to see in the Middle East. "That's about it."
Other protesters hoped for a two-state solution.
Many attendees told Fox News Digital Netanyahu is a "war criminal" who "belongs in jail" and were skeptical that Harris would be harsher on Israel if elected president.
"I really hate her," Elise from Virginia said. "I am both pro-life and pro-Palestine, and she is against both of those things. So to me, she's just into a double genocide."
Fox News Digital's Gabriel Hays, Jeffrey Clark and Hannah Ray Lambert contributed to this update.
Senator Kamala Harris spoke with San Francisco Mayor London Breed at the Curran in San Francisco, Calif., on Saturday, January 12, 2019. (Yalonda M James/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)
Sales of Vice President Kamala Harris' 2019 memoir have skyrocketed in recent days, following her ascension to the top of the Democratic ticket to take on former President Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election.
"The Truths We Hold: An American Journey" currently ranks at No. 1 among female biographies on Amazon. It's No. 2 among all biographies, behind Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance's 2016 personal memoir, "Hillbilly Elegy."
"This book is not meant to be a policy platform, much less a 50-point plan," Harris wrote in the preface.
"Instead, it is a collection of ideas and viewpoints and stories, from my life and from the lives of the many people I've met along the way."
Harris was born in Oakland, California, in October 1964, to immigrant parents.
"My father, Donald Harris, was born in Jamaica in 1938," Harris wrote. "He was a brilliant student who immigrated to the United States after being admitted to the University of California at Berkeley."
Her dad is a professor emeritus of economics at Stanford University today.
"My mother’s life began thousands of miles to the east, in southern India," wrote Harris. "Shyamala Gopalan was the oldest of four children … Like my father, she was a gifted student."
The vice president’s mother also studied at Berkeley, and became a doctor of endocrinology and breast cancer researcher. She died in 2009.
In the book, Harris describes how her parents shaped her politics while participating in the civil rights movement.
"My parents often brought me in a stroller with them to civil rights marches … Social justice was a central part of our discussions," she wrote.
Her father was part of a network of leftist activist friends in Berkeley and San Francisco political circles. Among them: Lateefah Simon, a Bay Area social justice warrior and 2024 congressional candidate.
"Lateefah was a genius," Harris wrote. "In 2003, she became the youngest woman to ever win the prestigious MacArthur ‘Genius’ award."
Simon today sits on the Bay Area Rapid Transport board of directors and has enjoyed leadership positions with far-left groups such as the Rosenberg Foundation and the Akonadi Foundation.
Fox News Digital's Kerry J. Byrne contributed to this update.
Vice President Harris will not reveal when she first found out President Biden was ending his re-election bid.
Fox News Digital made several attempts to reach Harris' office to ask when the vice president was first notified that Biden would no longer seek re-election but did not receive a response to the question.
Biden made a sudden withdrawal from the presidential race via a written statement on Sunday, despite his communication team spending the days leading up to the withdrawal being adamant that the president was staying in the race.
Harris was immediately propped up by Democrats as the candidate to replace Biden at the top of the 2024 ticket, but it is unknown exactly when she found out that he would not be running after weeks of concern over his fitness to serve.
After Biden dropped out, it was reported that only a handful of White House and campaign officials were notified of the president's plan to forego his re-election, prompting questions about the administration's communication over the situation.
Biden endorsed Harris shortly after the withdrawal announcement. The vice president did not waste any time before accepting Biden's endorsement and stepping into his place on the ticket, visiting the revamped campaign headquarters just 24 hours after the president dropped out.
Fox News Digital's Aubrie Spady contributed to this update.
U.S. President Joe Biden hugs son Hunter Biden after addressing the nation from the Oval Office of the White House on July 24, 2024 in Washington, DC. (Evan Vucci-Pool/Getty Images)
The first lady and members of President Biden's family were with him in the White House as he delivered his Oval Office address on Wednesday evening.
Most of the Biden family sat off to the side as the president spoke from the resolute desk. Those in attendance included Hunter Biden, his daughter Finnegan Biden, Ashley Biden and her husband, Howard Krein, first lady Jill Biden, Naomi Biden Neal and her husband, Peter Neal and several of the president's grandchildren.
There were about 40 people in the Oval Office for Biden's address, including the president, his family and staff.
Family members were seen tearing up and hugging the president after he wrapped up his speech. They applauded him after his remarks concluded.
Once the cameras were off, Biden went to the dining room for a private moment with his family. He returned a few minutes later to address hundreds of staff awaiting him in the Rose Garden, who surprised him with loud and lengthy cheering.
U.S. President Joe Biden speaks from the Oval Office of the White House on July 24, 2024 in Washington, DC. (Evan Vucci-Pool/Getty Images)
In a roughly 11 minute Oval Office address , President Biden told the American people his plans for the remainder of his first and only term in the White House.
The president said he looks forward to the work before him in his final six months in office, including pushing for Supreme Court reforms.
"Over the next six months, I will be focused on doing my job as president. That means I will continue to lower costs for hard-working families, grow our economy. I will keep defending our personal freedoms and civil rights, from the right to vote to the right to choose. I will keep calling out hate and extremism, making it clear there is no place, no place in America for political violence or any violence ever, period. I’m going to keep speaking out to protect our kids from gun violence, our planet from climate crisis as an existential threat," Biden said.
"I will keep fighting for my Cancer Moonshot, so we can end cancer as we know it because we can do it. I’m going to call for Supreme Court reform because this is critical to our democracy — Supreme Court reform. You know, I will keep working to ensure American remains strong, secure and the leader of the free world."
Biden also said he will continue to support Ukraine in the eastern European nation's war against Russia, continue to seek a peaceful resolution to the war in Gaza and bring home the Americans still held captive around the world.
Fox News Digital's Emma Colton contributed to this update.
President Biden publicly addressed the nation on Wednesday for the first time after announcing Sunday that he’d withdrawn from the 2024 campaign for a pending re-election.
He cited things he’s done since being inaugurated, but he also said the election is up to the ‘American people,’ just a moment after he gave his endorsement to Vice President Kamala Harris as his successor.
“In just a few months, the American people will choose the course of America’s future. I made my choice. I’ve made my views known,” Biden said from the White House. “I would like to thank our great vice president, Kamala Harris. She is experienced, she is tough, she is capable. She’s been an incredible partner to me and a leader for our country.
“Now the choice is up to you, the American people. When you make that choice, remember the words of Benjamin Franklin hanging on my wall here in the Oval Office, alongside the busts of Dr. King and Rosa Parks and Cesar Chavez.”
Biden won the needed votes to clinch delegates for re-election. Now, it seems like Harris will be the presumed Democratic candidate to run against former President Donald Trump in the general election this fall.
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