The decision comes after escalating pressure from Biden’s Democratic allies to step aside following the June 27 debate, in which the 81-year-old president trailed off, often gave nonsensical answers and failed to call out the former president’s many falsehoods. Biden endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to take on Trump, and encouraged his party to united behind her.

Biden plans to serve out the remainder of his term in office, which ends at noon ET on Jan. 20, 2025.

“It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your President. And while it has been my intention to seek reelection, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term,” Biden wrote in a letter posted to his X account.

Nearly 30 minutes later, Biden throw his support behind Harris, the party’s instant favorite for the nomination at its August convention in Chicago.

“Today I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year,” he said in another post on X. “Democrats — it’s time to come together and beat Trump.”

Biden’s decision came as he has been isolating at his Delaware beach house after being diagnosed with COVID-19 last week, huddling with a shrinking circle of close confidants and family members about his political future. Biden said he would address the nation later this week to provide “detail” about his decision.

The White House confirmed the authenticity of the letter.

The announcement is the latest jolt to a campaign for the White House that both political parties see as the most consequential election in generations, coming just days after the attempted assassination of Trump at a Pennsylvania rally.

A party’s presumptive presidential nominee has never stepped out of the race so close to the election. The closest parallel would be President Lyndon Johnson who, besieged by the Vietnam War, announced in March 1968 that he would not seek another term.

Now, Democrats have to urgently try to bring coherence to the nominating process in a matter of weeks and persuade voters in a stunningly short amount of time that their nominee can handle the job and beat Trump. And for his part, Trump must shift his focus to a new opponent after years of training his attention on Biden.

The decision marks a swift and stunning end to Biden’s 52 years in electoral politics, as donors, lawmakers and even aides expressed to him their doubts that he could convince voters that he could plausibly handle the job for another four years.

Biden won the vast majority of delegates and every nominating contest but one, which would have made his nomination a formality. Now that he has dropped out, those delegates will be free to support another candidate.

Harris, 59, appeared to be the natural successor, in large part because she is the only candidate who can directly tap into the Biden campaign’s war chest, according to federal campaign finance rules.

Biden’s backing helps clear the way for Harris, but a smooth transition is by no means assured.

The Democratic National Convention is scheduled to be held Aug. 19-22 in Chicago, but the party had announced that it would hold a virtual roll call to formally nominate Biden before in-person proceedings begin.

It remained to be seen whether other candidates woul challenge Harris for the nomination or how party may need to adjust its rules again to smooth Harris’ nomination on the floor.

In 2020, Biden pitched himself as a transitional figure who wanted to be a bridge to a new generation of leaders. But once he secured the job he spent decades struggling to attain, he was reluctant to part with it.

Biden was once asked whether any other Democrats could beat Trump.

“Probably 50 of them,” Biden replied. “No, I’m not the only one who can defeat him, but I will defeat him.”

Biden is already the country’s oldest president and had insisted repeatedly that he was up for the challenge of another campaign and another term, telling voters all they had to was “watch me.”

And watch him they did. His poor debate performance prompted a cascade of anxiety from Democrats and donors who said publicly what some had said privately for months, that they did not think he was up to the job for four more years.

Concerns over Biden’s age have dogged him since he announced he was running for reelection, though Trump is just three years younger at 78. Most Americans view the president as too old for a second term, according to an August 2023 poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. A majority also doubt his mental capability to be president, though that is also a weakness for Trump.

Biden often remarked that he was not as young as he used to be, doesn’t walk as easily or speak as smoothly, but that he had wisdom and decades of experience, which were worth a whole lot.

“I give you my word as a Biden. I would not be running again if I didn’t believe with all my heart and soul I can do this job,” he told supporters at a rally in North Carolina a day after the debate. “Because, quite frankly, the stakes are too high.”

But voters had other problems with him, too — he has been deeply unpopular as a leader even as his administration steered the nation through recovery from a global pandemic, presided over a booming economy and passed major pieces of bipartisan legislation that will impact the nation for years to come. A majority of Americans disapprove of the way he’s handling his job, and he’s faced persistently low approval ratings on key issues including the economy and immigration.

Biden’s age surfaced as a major factor during an investigation of his handling of classified documents. Special counsel Robert Hur said in February that the president came across in interviews with investigators as “a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”

The president’s allies seized on the statement as gratuitous and criticized Hur for including it in his report, and Biden himself angrily pushed back on descriptions of how he spoke about his late son.

Biden’s motivation for running was deeply intertwined with Trump. He had retired from public service following eight years serving as vice president under Barack Obama and the death of his son Beau but decided to run after Trump’s comments following a “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, when white supremacists descended on the city to protest the removal of its Confederate memorials.

Trump said: “You had some very bad people in the group, but you also had people that were very fine people on both sides. On both sides.”

That a sitting president didn’t unequivocally condemn racism and white supremacy deeply offended Biden. Then, Biden won the 2020 election and Trump refused to concede and stood by for hours while his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, beating and bloodying law enforcement in a failed attempt to overturn the certification of Biden’s win.

“If Trump wasn’t running, I’m not sure I’d be running,” Biden once said during at a campaign event.

Trump’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Biden’s decision to leave the race, but he and his team had made their preference for facing Biden clear.

Despite making clear their preference for facing Biden, Trump’s campaign has also ramped up its attacks on Harris as pressure on Biden to step down has intensified in recent weeks.

Mrs. Robinson’s death was announced by Michelle Obama and other family members in a statement that said “there was and will be only one Marian Robinson. In our sadness, we are lifted up by the extraordinary gift of her life.”

She was a widow and lifelong Chicago resident when she moved to the executive mansion in 2009 to help care for granddaughters Malia and Sasha. In her early 70s, Mrs. Robinson initially resisted the idea of starting over in Washington, and Michelle Obama had to enlist her brother, Craig, to help persuade their mother to move.

“There were many good and valid reasons that Michelle raised with me, not the least of which was the opportunity to continue spending time with my granddaughters, Malia and Sasha, and to assist in giving them a sense of normalcy that is a priority for both of their parents, as has been from the time Barack began his political career,” Mrs. Robinson wrote in the foreword to “A Game of Character,” a memoir by her son, formerly the head men’s basketball coach at Oregon State University.

“My feeling, however, was that I could visit periodically without actually moving in and still be there for the girls,” she said.

Mrs. Robinson wrote that her son understood why she wanted to stay in Chicago but still used a line of reasoning on her that she often used on him and his sister. He asked her to see the move as a chance to grow and try something new. As a compromise, she agreed to move, at least temporarily.

Granddaughters Malia and Sasha were just 10 and 7, respectively, when the White House became home in 2009. In Chicago, Mrs. Robinson had become almost a surrogate parent to the girls during the 2008 presidential campaign. She retired from her job as a bank secretary to help shuttle them around.

At the White House, Mrs. Robinson provided a reassuring presence for the girls as their parents settled into their new roles, and her lack of Secret Service protection made it possible for her to accompany them to and from school daily without fanfare.

“I would not be who I am today without the steady hand and unconditional love of my mother, Marian Shields Robinson,” Michelle Obama wrote in her 2018 memoir, “Becoming.” “She has always been my rock, allowing me the freedom to be who I am, while never allowing my feet to get too far off the ground. Her boundless love for my girls, and her willingness to put our needs before her own, gave me the comfort and confidence to venture out into the world knowing they were safe and cherished at home.”

Mrs. Robinson gave a few media interviews but never to White House press. Aides guarded her privacy, and, as result, she enjoyed a level of anonymity openly envied by the president and first lady. It allowed her to come and go from the White House as often as she pleased on shopping runs around town, to the president’s box at the Kennedy Center and for trips to Las Vegas or to visit her other grandchildren in Portland, Oregon.

She attended some White House events, including concerts, the annual Easter Egg Roll and National Christmas Tree lighting, and some state dinners.

White House residency also opened up the world to Mrs. Robinson, who had been a widow for nearly 20 years when she moved to a room on the third floor of the White House, one floor above the first family. She had never traveled outside the U.S. until she moved to Washington.

Her first flight out of the country was aboard Air Force One in 2009 when the Obamas visited France. She joined the Obamas on a trip to Russia, Italy and Ghana later that year, during which she got to meet Pope Benedict, tour Rome’s ancient Colosseum and view a former slave-holding compound on the African coast. She also accompanied her daughter and granddaughters on two overseas trips without the president: to South Africa and Botswana in 2011, and China in 2014.

Craig Robinson wrote in the memoir that he and his parents doubted whether his sister’s relationship with Barack Obama would last, though Fraser Robinson III and his wife thought the young lawyer was a worthy suitor for their daughter, also a lawyer. Without explanation, Craig Robinson said his mother gave the relationship six months.

Barack and Michelle Obama were married on Oct. 3, 1992.

One of seven children, Marian Lois Shields Robinson was born in Chicago on July 30, 1937. She attended two years of teaching college, married in 1960 and, as a stay-at-home mom, stressed the importance of education to her children. Both were educated at Ivy League schools, each with a bachelor’s degree from Princeton. Michelle Obama also has a law degree from Harvard.

Fraser Robinson was a pump operator for the Chicago Water Department who had multiple sclerosis. He died in 1991.

The PSA was released less than 72 hours after Colin Kaepernick’s former team, the San Francisco 49ers, secured their place in Super Bowl LIV to face the Kansas City Chiefs on Feb. 2. Four years ago, Kaepernick started taking a knee during the national anthem to protest against police brutality.

The Jean PSA is the third to come out of The Responsibility Program, a platform created by the NFL and Roc Nation in 2019, with the intention of creating awareness about social injustices devastating communities across the nation and the importance of working together to facilitate change.

The two-minute video is narrated by Botham Jean’s family. Allison Jean, his mother, and Bertrum Jean, his father, gave emotional testimonies about their son’s character and the impact his death has had on their family. His sister, Allisa Findley, shared her ongoing efforts to keep her brother’s memory alive with the Botham Jean Foundation, an organization she started.

https://t.co/0k9IQU4xM5
We are in this together.#EveryonesChild #InspireChange pic.twitter.com/yaH04eG2OA

— NFL (@NFL) January 22, 2020

“What I hope to see happen is that our black boys are not seen as a threat,” Jean’s mom said during the PSA. “There are things that must be done and must be done quickly. We must change this all around.”

Guyger is now serving a 10-year sentence for killing Jean and is the first Dallas cop convicted of murder since Darrell L. Cain killed 12-year-old Santos Rodriguez in 1973.

This is one of three PSAs in addition to the two PSAs released in 2019 by the Players Coalition and Meek Mill’s label, Dream Chasers Records (a joint venture with Roc Nation). This PSA is the first one of which released by the NFL.

The Responsibility Program joined the Players Coalition, a non-profit focused on criminal justice reform, co-founded by former NFL pro-bowler Anquan Boldin and current NFL Pro Bowler Malcolm Jenkins, to release their first PSA on Nov. 6, 2019. With over a million Twitter views the video featured Danroy “DJ” Henry, a 20-year-old student athlete at Pace University who was killed in 2010 by Aaron Hess, a police officer in Mount Pleasant, New York. Hess was not indicted. The family was paid a $6 million settlement to end their wrongful death suit.

About a month after the Players Coalition released the Henry PSA, Mill’s label released a second PSA about another incident of police brutality. This time it was Antwon Rose II, a 17-year-old high school student, who was shot in the back as he fled from police while unarmed. Michael Rosfeld, the East Pittsburgh police officer who killed Rose on June 19, 2018, was charged with criminal homicide, but found not guilty. Similar to Henry’s case, the Rose family settled their wrongful death suit out of court for $2 million.

“There are so many aspects of why we do this, but for me, I do it for the love of my son,” said Michelle Kenney, Rose’s mother. “I want the world to know what happened to him, and if collectively—the families, Roc Nation, the NFL, the Players Coalition—if we can prevent this from happening to one other family, one other son, one other brother, one other loved one, this is why we do it and this is the biggest platform we can do it on.”

Most recently at Sunday’s AFC and NFC Championship games, the NFL’s Inspire Change initiative released a 60 second ad about Anquan Boldin’s cousin, Corey Jones, who was murdered by Nouman K. Raja, a Florida police officer in plainclothes, on Oct. 18, 2015. In a statement for Ad Age, Tim Ellis, the chief marketing officer of the NFL, said that Roc Nation did not produce the Corey Jones spot, but were consulted “on the content and overall approach.”

In 2018, as part of its ongoing commitment to social justice, the NFL launched the Inspire Change initiative and has been working with the Players Coalition. The NFL has already provided more than $25 million in grants to organizations focused on social justice issues in the following priority areas: education and economic advancement, police and community relations, criminal justice reform. This includes over 500 grants awarded to current and former NFL players for social justice programs and initiatives across the country.

Since August of 2019, the NFL has worked with Roc Nation to help amplify Inspire Change and continue to highlight the efforts of NFL players to create positive change in communities across the country. The new PSA is an element of the league’s partnership with Roc Nation.