After weeks of crisis talks and a growing wave of Democrats and allies saying the end was clear, Joe Biden’s momentous decision to withdraw from the presidential race came at the last minute.
The 81-year-old president was in COVID isolation at his $3.4 million home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, when he and his dwindling inner circle wrote a letter saying it was time to step aside.
Donors had pulled millions of dollars in funding, the list of Democrats telling him to drop out grew by the day and polls suggested his chances of beating Donald Trump were dwindling after his disastrous debate performance.
Jill Biden was there when her husband made the historic call, bowing to mounting pressure.
The question now is what prompted him to finally make the extraordinary decision that surprised some of his White House aides and most of the people working on his re-election campaign.
Jill Biden has been with husband Joe Biden in Rehoboth as he makes his decision on the 2024 presidential run; above the couple at their beach house in February.
On Saturday night, Biden called on two men who have been by his side since his earliest days in politics: advisers Steve Ricchetti and Mike Donilon. They have been with him from the best of times — his first years as a senator — to the worst — the death of his son Beau Biden.
The president and first lady were already joined by their closest collaborators Annie Tomasini and Anthony Bernal, whom they refer to as “family.”
Biden asked Ricchetti and Donilon to begin drafting a letter and begin the process of how to make a public announcement, DailyMail.com confirmed. And the president also told his family about it.
This suggests that Biden finally weighed the evidence against him and decided he could not go ahead for the good of the party.
He had insisted he would only step aside if he was shown polls showing Kamala Harris would fare better than him against Trump in the general election, or if he developed a “medical condition.”
Were you given statistics showing you were doomed in November? Did you decide you weren’t healthy enough to serve another four years? Or did you make a selfless decision based on the good of the party’s future?
At 1:45 p.m. Sunday, Biden, still at his beach house in Delaware, began calling his senior White House staff and the campaign. He had already spoken with Vice President Kamala Harris and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.
In every conversation, he dropped his bombshell: he was abandoning the presidential race.
At 1:46 p.m., his campaign account posted a letter from the president announcing his decision even as he was still on the staff call.
Most of his staff, both in the White House and on the campaign trail, were shocked. They heard the news online and found out when the @JoeBiden account posted the president’s letter.
“No one knew about it before the tweet was posted,” one campaign official told DailyMail.com. “Which, to me, is an absurd way to treat the 1,300 people who work for you on the campaign.”
Presidential counselor Steve Ricchetti (left) and campaign adviser Mike Donilon (right) were called to Rehoboth Beach to help Biden write his letter about his decision.
It was the final straw in a chaotic 48 hours for the Biden family, who hunkered down behind their patriarch with a small inner circle of former aides supporting them. Some even informed Jill Biden about staffers they deemed disloyal.
Meanwhile, Biden has gone from being angry at the pressure from his party to accepting the situation.
And once his final decision was made on Saturday night, the rest moved quickly.
Biden called Harris directly to tell her the news.
He also reportedly held personal conversations with White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients and campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon. He also spoke with his cabinet, members of Congress, governors and supporters.
But it all happened so fast that many employees were hurt by the way they heard the news, even if it did not surprise them.
The picture was already clear. Nearly 40 Democratic lawmakers had called on Biden to drop out of the race. Major donors were threatening to withdraw their support. Actor George Clooney wrote an op-ed in the New York Times calling for Biden to step down. And Barack Obama was reportedly working behind the scenes to get Biden to step aside.
“It was bound to happen,” said one Democratic aide. “But he just dropped a bombshell. It’s not surprising, but it’s shocking.”
Another staff member said people felt “a mix of relief, gratitude and hope.”
The campaign held an all-staff call at 5 p.m. Eastern Time to assure staff that they still had their jobs.
Campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon acknowledged that “it was difficult for staff who may have received the news while working or knocking on doors, but it was important for the president to hear it in his own words.”
President Joe Biden, from left, walks with White House Deputy Chief of Staff Annie Tomasini, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Bruce Reed and White House Communications Director Ben LaBolt in April.
Anthony Bernal, Jill Biden’s senior adviser, and Annie Tomasini, her deputy chief of staff, leave the White House together in February: He runs the East Wing; she runs the West Wing.
Publicly, aides have been loyal to Biden.
Many have appeared on television and taken to social media to defend the president since his disastrous debate performance against Donald Trump 24 days ago, arguing that Biden was the party’s nominee and planned to remain the nominee.
Since the June 26 debate, staffers had been trying to carry on with business as usual, pushing back on reports that Biden would drop out.
‘Fanfiction,’ deputy press secretary Andrew Bates said of reports that Biden would drop out this weekend, advising Democrats to ‘keep the faith.’
Even on Sunday morning, the campaign message was that Biden was there to win.
Campaign co-chairman Cedric Richmond said on CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday morning: “I want to be crystal clear. He has made a decision and that decision is to accept the nomination and run for reelection, win reelection.”
Officials defended the way the decision was announced.
It was done at the “last minute,” a White House official said.
In reality, it was made in the last 24 hours, and only Biden’s family and a small circle of close associates knew about his decision.
And by keeping it from senior staff until the last minute (and not telling junior staff at all), the news didn’t leak out. It came out on Biden’s terms.
All of this fits with a man who is apparently frustrated by what he sees as a public pressure campaign to force him to act.
Biden has spent the past four days in physical and political isolation.
He is at his Delaware beach house on the Atlantic Ocean as he recovers from COVID-19, still coughing and hoarse from the virus. First lady Jill Biden has been with him, though she has been staying in a separate room.
And it is from there that the president has watched Democrat after Democrat call for his departure, as he spent the past three weeks trying to reassure the party that he was mentally and physically ready for a second term.
But despite everything he has done – national television interviews, local radio interviews, a press conference and campaign rallies – nothing has managed to calm the tide against him.
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Following the decision, Biden’s family was clear about their love and support. praising him for his service to the country.
Jill Biden sent her love on Sunday afternoon, retweeting her letter with two red hearts.
Naomi Biden, the Bidens’ eldest granddaughter, wrote a lengthy post on X, where she said she was “proud” of her “dad,” which is what the grandchildren call President Biden.
She noted: “Our world is better today in many ways because of him. To the Americans who have always stood by him, keep the faith. He will always stand by us.”
And Hunter Biden said in a statement about his father: “He is unique in public life today in that there is no distance between Joe Biden the man and Joe Biden the public servant of the last 54 years. I am so lucky to be able to tell him every night that I love him and to thank him. I ask all Americans to join me tonight in doing the same.”
Thank you, Mr. President. I love you, Dad.