President Biden said in an interview set to air Sunday that “the most important thing” is to “defeat [former President] Trump” after he dropped out of the presidential race.
“When I ran the first time, I thought of myself as being a transition president,” Biden said in a clip of the “CBS News Sunday Morning” interview with the outlet’s Robert Costa. “I can’t even say how old I am, it’s hard for me to get it out of my mouth.”
“Although I — it’s a great honor being president, I think I have an obligation to the country to do what I — the most important thing you can do, and that is we must, we must, we must defeat Trump,” Biden continued.
Biden left the presidential race late last month following mounting pressure from those in his own party to do so. That pressure was sparked by a bad presidential debate performance against Trump in late June, which resulted in rising concerns about the president’s age, mental fitness and ability to recapture the White House.
The president quickly endorsed Vice President Harris following his announcement that he was exiting the race. Harris is now the Democratic presidential nominee, and announced Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) as her own running mate on Tuesday.
Harris is now neck-and-neck with Trump in an average of national polls from The Hill/Decision Desk HQ, with the vice president garnering 47.2 percent support to the former president’s 47.4 percent.