Joe Biden Says He Fulfilled This 'Obligation' By Dropping Out

President Joe Biden said his decision to withdraw his 2024 candidacy stemmed from his “obligation to the country” to make sure Donald Trump doesn’t return to the White House.

In his first interview since dropping out, broadcast Sunday, Biden said he believed talk about Democrats, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, raising questions about his candidacy would become a “real distraction” if he stayed in the race.

“The polls we had showed that it was a neck-and-neck race, would have been down to the wire,” Biden told “CBS Sunday Morning.” “But what happened was, a number of my Democratic colleagues in the House and Senate thought that I was gonna hurt them in the races. And I was concerned if I stayed in the race, that would be the topic. You’d be interviewing me about ‘Why did Nancy Pelosi say ….’ ‘Why did so-and-so ….’”

The president added that when he originally ran in 2020, he intended to be a one-term president and then pass on the torch to the next generation of Democrats.

“When I ran the first time, I thought of myself as being a transition president,” he said. “I can’t even say how old I am; it’s hard for me to get it outta my mouth. But things got moving so quickly, it didn’t happen.”

Ultimately, Biden said, he wanted to make sure former President Donald Trump, whom he described as a “genuine danger to American security,” loses in November.

“The critical issue for me still — it’s not a joke — maintaining this democracy,” he said. “I thought it was important. Because, although it’s a great honor being president, I think I have an obligation to the country to do what [is] the most important thing you can do, and that is, we must, we must, we must defeat Trump.”

Following his announcement in July that he