Biden Is Out, and Democrats Have a Whole New Set of Questions

It’s over.

At 1:46 p.m., with the minute hand of the clock pointed to the number of his presidency, President Biden somberly ended his untenable re-election campaign and sought to give his downtrodden party something he could no longer provide: a sense of hope.

“It is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down,” he wrote in a letter posted to X, “and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as president for the remainder of my term.”

It was an earthshaking political moment many Democrats had been clamoring for — so I’m struck by how quietly it came, and with how little fanfare. Biden’s choice, made while he is at his Delaware beach house after testing positive for Covid-19, did not leak. He told some of his senior staff only a minute before he told the world, my colleague Katie Rogers reported. He did not make a speech to the public, though he said he will later this week.

His campaign’s transformation, though, starts now.

About half an hour after he withdrew, Biden endorsed his vice president, Kamala Harris. A little after 4 p.m., she made it official herself.

“My intention,” Harris said in a statement distributed by the Biden for President campaign, “is to earn and win this nomination.”

In an all-staff call, the campaign’s leaders said they were now all working for Harris for President, according to my colleague Reid Epstein.