Biden drops out of presidential race live updates: Biden mega-donor announces he will not fundraise with Kamala Harris: ‘Joe Biden’s f–k you’
President Joe Biden announced Sunday he is dropping out of the presidential race.
Minutes later, he endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to be his successor.
The president was facing mounting calls from within his own party to step aside after a disastrous debate performance against former President Donald Trump in June.
This is the first time an incumbent president has declined to run for re-election since Lyndon Johnson dropped out of the presidential race in 1968.
Major Biden donor John Morgan told ABC News that he would not fundraise for the Democrats if Kamala Harris is the nominee.
“It’s one thing to vote for somebody; it’s another thing to raise millions of dollars for somebody; you have to really be in,” Morgan said.
The self-proclaimed “Biden/Manchin type Dem,” said that he doesn’t think Harris has a chance to win in November because she is too progressive.
Do I use #marijuana? Hell yes… Every fucking day.
Vote #YesOn3!! #PotDaddy #ForThePeople @smartandsafefl pic.twitter.com/ky5bp8RdaM
— John Morgan (@JohnMorganESQ) June 7, 2024
He added that the Republicans were likely giddy over the opportunity to campaign against a more left-wing candidate.
“If Trump World could pick anybody to run against, I think they pick her,” he said.
Morgan informed the Biden National Finance Committee that he was done fundraising for the Democrats after the 81-year-old president endorsed his veep.
“If she’s a nominee, Mar a Lago has a real big party that night,” Morgan continued.
The Florida lawyer took to X to say that “Joe Biden’s endorsement of Kamala is his f–k you to all who pushed him out,” likely referencing that she will likely face greater challenges running against Trump.
Vice President Kamala Harris may not have started Sunday as the prohibitive Democratic favorite to top the ticket in November, but fresh polling conducted in the wake of President Biden’s decision to withdraw from the race says she is now.
In a Sunday survey from YouGov, a staggering 60% of Democrats say the Californian should be the party’s presidential nominee.
Overt opposition to Harris ascending to the top of the ticket is relatively muted, with 21% of Democrats wanting someone else and 19% not sure what they want.
President Biden partly delayed dropping his 2024 re-election campaign because he doubted whether Vice President Kamala Harris could actually take on Donald Trump, a new report says.
The 81-year-old president and his senior advisers had expressed the concerns about whether the veep was up to the challenge of facing off against Trump in the lead up to his historic announcement, Axios reported Monday, citing three Biden aides familiar with the conversations.
Still, Biden ultimately ended up endorsing Harris, 59, when he revealed he was stepping aside Sunday — weeks after his train wreck debate against Trump threw his campaign into disarray.
Political betting markets on Sunday pegged Vice President Kamala Harris and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro as the favorites to appear on the Democratic presidential ticket in the aftermath of President Biden’s decision to drop out of the race.
Harris, 59, is a massive 1/9 favorite (-900) to be Democratic presidential nominee, according to wagers placed on BetOnline.ag.
The vice president has been endorsed by Biden, 81, but has not received former President Barack Obama’s stamp of approval.
They didn’t soulfully consider Joe Biden’s marked decline and decide, for the good of him, his party, and the country that he had to step down.
They lied, and they got caught.
The Democratic Party line on President Biden was that he had turned in an exceptionally effective State of the Union address. He might mess up a name here or there, but he had gotten better with age.
He should be judged on his achievements, which rivaled those of LBJ. Anything suggesting he was in decline was a paranoid lie, or — in a truly ridiculous neologism — “a cheap fake.”
Everything we saw with our own eyes was misleading. No, he hadn’t wandered off at the G-7 summit. No, he hadn’t frozen up at his Hollywood fundraiser.
No, everything was fine.
Democrats raised an eye-popping $46.7 million hours after President Biden dropped his reelection bid and backed Vice President Kamala Harris to run against Donald Trump, according to a liberal fundraising platform.
The massive influx of cash marked the single-largest fundraising day for online party contributions since the last presidential election, according to a New York Times analysis.
ActBlue, which is used by the Biden-Harris campaign for small-dollar donors, said it raised the incredible figure by about 9 p.m., adding that Sunday had the highest amount of donations of the entire 2024 election cycle thus far.
“Small-dollar donors are fired up and ready to take on this election,” ActBlue tweeted.
We’re still stuck with Joe Biden as president for six months. He might have passed the political torch to VP Kamala Harris but he still has control of the nuclear football. Or maybe Dr. Jill and Hunter do.
Either way, it’s a frightening message to send to the world: The US president is too cognitively impaired to run for re-election in November but he’s staying on as commander in chief until January.
You can bet that leaving the president in place, despite the obvious peril to America, was part of the deal Biden struck to go quietly as Nancy Pelosi and the Obamacans ratcheted up the pain.
Last week, when the president was digging in his heels in Rehoboth Beach amid damaging leaks from his own side that only got his Irish up, one insider told me: “This is not a contest. This is the president’s decision . . .
“Publicly pressuring him when they have no alternative [candidate challenging him] instead of trying to work something out with the leader they want to retire is backfiring.”
Sen. Joe Manchin on Monday confirmed he would not be challenging Vice President Kamala Harris for the Democratic presidential ticket, saying, “I don’t need that in my life.”
The longtime West Virginia Democrat who turned independent this year squashed rumors that he would be going up against Harris in November’s election during an interivew on CBS Monday morning.
“I’m not running for office,” Manchin said, according to CBS Correspondent Robert Costa.
WATERTOWN, Wis. — When Sharon McMahon, “America’s Government Teacher,” interviewed Vice President Kamala Harris during the second-in-command’s March visit to Minnesota, Biden’s age was enough of a concern that it came up during the conversation — which was made up almost entirely of softball questions.
When McMahon brought up a USA Today-Suffolk University poll “suggesting that perhaps independent voters have not yet been convinced that you are capable of being the president, which you have said you are,” Harris responded, “If I listened to polls, I would never have run for my first or second office.”
In an early morning press release Monday, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) endorsed her “friend, Vice President Kamala Harris.”
“I am proud to endorse my friend, Vice President Kamala Harris, for president. VP Harris is an unwavering champion for families, workers and justice. She is incredibly well-qualified, with experience as a prosecutor, as a lawmaker, and as a leader on the world stage.
“Now is the time to unite. VP Harris has the grit and toughness to beat Donald Trump and I’m eager to join her in this fight,” Gillibrand said.
This comes as New York Democrats have almost universally announced their support for the vice president’s run.
New York’s Democratic leaders quickly coalesced around Vice President Kamala Harris to be the party’s standard bearer for the White House after embattled President Biden announced he dropped out of the race.
However, there were a couple big exceptions to the calls to unite around Harris. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Mayor Eric Adams were both silent Sunday night about who should replace Biden.
“The winds are not just blowing toward Vice President Kamala Harris. It’s a hurricane for Kamala Harris for president,” said Manhattan Democratic leader and Harlemite Keith Wright.
On Sunday, President Biden chose National Ice Cream Day to announce he will not seek re-election for a second term, endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris to take over as the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee.
Biden said in a letter posted to X that he will “stand down and focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term.”
But if he had any respect for the office he holds, the American people, our republic or himself, Biden would resign from the presidency immediately.
No one said campaigning for re-election was easy. The schedule is punishing.
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Former President Donald Trump has accused President Biden of faking his Covid diagnosis ahead of his historic decision to drop out of the election — while calling the oldest-ever president a “threat to Democracy” for staying in office for the rest of his term.
“Biden never had Covid. He is a threat to Democracy!” the Republican presidential nominee posted to Truth Social in a stream of attacks starting Sunday.
Trump also joined many others in asking how Biden — who announced he had Covid on Wednesday, days before dropping out of his reelection race — could continue in the Oval Office after conceding he was not fit for another four years.
