Clueless Joe Biden Re-emerges With 7-word Admission in First Interview Since Leaving White House
Joe Biden said it 'wouldn't have mattered' if he would have withdrawn from last year's presidential race earlier.
May 7 2025, Published 11:01 a.m. ET
Joe Biden has no regrets about pulling the plug on his 2024 campaign at the last minute.
In his BBC sit-down on Wednesday, the former president said he didn't believe stepping aside earlier would have flipped the script on the election outcome, RadarOnline.com can reveal.
The former president opened up in his first sit-down interview since leaving the White House in January.
Biden, 82, bowed out of the 2024 race on July 21 after a Democratic revolt sparked by his disastrous June debate showdown with now-President Trump.
That gave then-VP Kamala Harris just 106 days to scramble for the White House – before she ultimately fell short against the MAGA ruler.
Biden said he withdrew when his then-VP Kamala Harris was ready and fully funded.
In his first televised interview since leaving office on January 20, Biden said: "I don't think it would have mattered."
"We left at a time when we had a good candidate. She was fully funded, and what happened was, what we had set out to do, no one thought we could do."
He added: "We had become so successful in our agenda, it was hard to say, 'I’m gonna stop now.'"
The 46th president also insisted he never planned a second term and positioned himself as a bridge to a new era.
He explained: "I meant what I said when I started, that I’m preparing to hand this to the next generation... but things moved so quickly, and it made it difficult to walk away."
Harris, 60, made a mark in history as the first Democratic presidential candidate in two decades to lose both the popular vote and the Electoral College – despite a massive $1 billion fundraising spree just months before.
Biden previously said he believed he could have beat Trump if he had stayed in the race.
In one of his last interviews before exiting office, Biden told USA Today he believed he could have defeated Trump once more if he had stayed in the race – even though public polls pointed to a looming landslide loss.
However, he admitted he wasn't sure he could have withstood another term.
Biden previously admitted to a number of gaffes he made during his time in office, including how he "screwed up" during the debate and was "stupid" for not getting credit by putting his name on the pandemic relief checks his administration sent out in 2021 – as Trump did in 2020.
He also said the administration could've done a better job "lifting Americans' spirits" during the COVID pandemic.
Additionally, some of the former president's closest advisers have admitted Biden's old-school governing style didn't always mesh with modern politics.
Jake Sullivan, Biden's national security adviser, said: "The president has been operating on a time horizon measured in decades, while the political cycle is measured in four years."
The BBC interview with Biden was filmed on Monday in his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware, as part of the 80th anniversary commemoration of the end of World War II in Europe.
Biden took a swipe at Trump’s handling of Russia’s 38-month Ukraine invasion, slamming the administration for "modern-day appeasement" of Vladimir Putin – without naming him directly.
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He also criticized the Trump administration's suggestion that Ukraine should accept Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea as part of a peace deal, calling it a dangerous concession.
Biden questioned how anyone could believe giving land to a dictator would end the conflict, saying: "I just don’t understand."
The former prez criticized the Trump administration's suggestion that Ukraine accept Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea as a dangerous concession for peace.
Recently, White House officials have pushed both countries to accelerate negotiations for a deal while also warning they might completely step away from mediating the conflict.
Biden expressed concern over Europe's confidence in America's leadership, criticizing Trump's rhetoric about territorial expansion and defending his own administration's support for Ukraine.
