the, the, this is dw news live from berlin, joe biding withdrawals from the us presidential race, leaving the democratic campaign in uncharted waters. the sitting president made the announcement on the social media platform x, that you would not be the democratic candidate to contest against donald trump. by and also endorses vice president comma la harris. he urges his supporters to back her, making her the favorite to win the democratic nomination at you next month. party convention the

i melissa chad. thanks for joining us. joe biden is withdrawing from the us presidential race. the 81 year old had been the presumptive democratic party nominee, but he now says he will focus on fulfilling his duties as president for the remainder of his term. biden has also endorsed vice president comma harris to run against a former president. donald trump aiming to avoid further division among democrats. here's what he had to say. quote, my fellow democrats, i have decided not to sub to the nomination and to focus all my energies on my duties as president for the remainder of my term. my very 1st decision at the party nominee in 2020 was to pick come le harris as my vice president. and it's been the best decision i've made today. i want to offer my full support and endorsement for carmella to be the nominee of our party. this year, demmet craft,

it's time to come together and beat trump. let's do it. and quote, and donald trump reacted on the social media platform. truth social writing, quote, crooked joe, biting was not fin fit to run for president and is certainly not fit to serve. and never was, he only attained the position of president by lies fake news and not leaving his basement all those around him, including his doctor and the media knew that he wasn't capable of being president. and he wasn't. and now look what he's done to our country with millions of people coming across our border. totally unchecked and, and vetted many from prisons, mental institutions and record numbers of terrorist. we will suffer greatly because of his presidency, but we will remedy the damage he has done very quickly. make america great again and quote, trump having a lot to say they're very clearly it's and we've got team coverage here with me

in the studio as my colleague dw anchor bank, golf and in washington in front of the white house, dw reporter steph on. siemens. let's start with you, steph. on after weeks of rumors and talks, it's finally happened. a president joe biden drops out of the 2024 election race. what more do we know? well, you're right. so those were $24.00 really, really painful days for most of the observers, for most democrats actually, that was paid for the watch after this disastrous tv performance of the president. and now 24 days later you have the result. he's finally, finally for in the view of many, many, many stepping down and doing the right thing. of course, donald trump and the g o. p. and probably can potty is trying to get pull the code capital out of this and, and good all from a habit is still going on on the performance of the past performance of joe biden as president. that's actually not the issue today because

he's still the president will be probably until of course january, but he's not running for president anymore. now, common law harris has to send out an announcement to thinking the president for his full endorsement and is saying that she is willing to really and this is on the nation with every delegate with every democratic data. good. and here's the key question. what is next? is comalla harris wants to net this nomination, this and capitalize on this full endorsement of president bite. and then she has to wait for the democratic delegates to do 2 things. number one, option in the virtual role called nominate her or we wait. all of us wait for 3 weeks and then we'll have a democratic convention in chicago and those delegates have to vote and nominate her there. interesting question is, will they do it? second interesting question. if they do it, who will she run? wits who will be her running make? could be. that's just one name who's on the block for taking so to speak. josh

appear on the governor of pennsylvania. one way or another is comalla harris neville. this nomination. let me finish with this one. this would be historic to why because she would be the 1st black asian american woman ever ever being on the ticket of a major political party for presidential race of the united states of america. step on the same on thank you so much and i'm going to turn to branch because i just want to take a step back because we can go into all the nuts and bolts of what happens next. but gosh, how do you feel? can you reflect on this moment in history? what, let's pick up of what stuff i would say either 25 days ago. no one would have predicted that we would be sitting here right now talking about president biden and saying that he was dropping out of his re election right. 24 days ago the the debate came the debacle the debate. and since that it is just been one, it's been a snowball effect, which we have seen. we have see,

have sources tell us that the president made this decision about 48 hours ago. ed. that he's been letting people know. and the wanted to have the weekend, i guess, to let the united st. yeah, as he was sick with cove. it was cobit exactly. but if you look at this, this, this man joe biden, he has been in politics as long as human. i've been alive a, b, c. we went to the us senate in 1972. it was there until 2008. and if you just look at the number of times he's actually run for president, either 281988. he was actually listed in 1984 as a possible candidate among all of the delegates had the democratic national convention. so he's, he's tried and tried and tried to at least put his foot in the white house many, many times. doug brinkley, us the story and was asked about the importance of the bite and presidency and he reminded us to look back in what things were like in january 2021. remember that we

had a paid demick, that was still not over there was inflation, that was spiraling. and we were ahead of the russian invasion of ukraine. and we'd also had 4 years of donald trump. some people including brinkley, had said that biden was a reprieve for a nation that was exhausted by trump. and the pandemic aid if you consider where we are in 2024 and look back every winning democrat presidential ticket in the 21st century. has been a ticket with joe biden on. that's an incredible fact toward if you think about it . and as buying says, he will be focusing on for feeling his duties as president for the remainder of his term. i want to take a look now at the weeks that have led up to this decision. inflation has, it was a moment that changed the trajectory of the 2024 presidential campaigns has increased. making sure that we're able to make every single solitary person

eligible for what i've been able to do with the, with the coven, i should be with dealing with everything we have to do with what if we finally be medicare? therefore, president joe biden called for an early $1.00 and $1.00 tv debate with donald trump . to dispel concerns about his age, we get to tony don't was a plan that backfired spectacularly. the total initial as viewers watched by and struggled with his answers in more asylum of questions about biden's, fitness had dog his campaign from the beginning in his public appearances in the us and abroad. the 81 year old appeared increasingly frail. like at last month's g 7, summit in italy, your job in the wake of business debate performance about this campaign and press

team start to downplay concerns a. he had a cold and a bad night. i would not see this as an episode. i would see this is what it was and what we believe it to be, which is it was a bad night. and he did on top of that, he had a cold biden's. every move was closely scrutinized. initially, he refused to devote out a letter. he said to democrat lawmakers failed to alleviate worries. pressure grew as high ranking democrats and donors publicly expressed reservations, including former house speaker, nancy, but most many praise biden's achievements, which include major infrastructure spending and restoring transatlantic partnerships. while at the same time concluding, that biden was no longer up to the job of stopping a 2nd to trump, the presence of french, i'm really wondering,

was this spine. everyone had said that whatever decision was made, it would be binds decision. but of course he faced a lot of pressure, was he sort of, if you leaving, kicking, and screaming, i guess is what i'm wondering. i'm sure this is bittersweet for him, but i think he wanted to win re election. he wanted to have the 2nd term, but i think that the calls that he was getting just became so great. i mean, we won't know, at least now we won't know exactly when the moment came. when he said, okay, enough is enough. let's do it, but you know, we had heard that nancy pelosi informing us how speaker she had said privately that she was questioning whether or not joe should continues and wants to low fee decides or wasting. sure. she's like, it's, you know, we've talked about titans in the democratic party, she's older than he is. right. and as he's once again, she's also raised by children. and so he rides disrespect for her. and when she was quoted as privately questioning is re election bid,

i think then the mental to speed up new and you have reports the brock obama was also a private lea. questioning whether or not this was a feasible re election run, although he was he has to be kind of careful. there's a little bit of tension between the former president and the current president. there, there is, i mean that they both say they won't say this in public, but if you look back at history, you know, he was the vice presidential running mate. and the vice president for board brought obama from 2008, 2016 in 2016. he wanted to run for president. and he as couple of harris maybe thank you right now. he was the era parent to the nomination, but he backed out and i think he backed out, but there were myriad of reasons why he did not push for it. but i think one was brock obama did not endorse him. and that has been a a stinking reality that you can't forget. now i know stuff on touched on this, but um, is this a foregone conclusion? it's going to be harris. no,

it's not. and i'll tell you why the democratic party had changed their rules back in the 1980s up to a well the delegates, even if they've all in the primaries given their their vote to the president as it's the case right now. they can still change if there isn't like an open convention. if there's another vote, you can change your vote if that's what your conscience tells you, said they're not bound to what we what happened with the primaries. so now, you know, we've heard from her today saying that she wants to be the next president, she's going to be running, but there's no guarantee that she will be the nominee. you know, we've got what, 3 weeks before the democratic national convention, and she is going to have to compete with others. now, who do we, who do we know? i mean there's, there's a long list of people who could be. but right now, no one is coming out of the woodwork tonight, at least not tonight, and it's funny. the same potential contenders are also the potential vice presidential candidates for harris. do you, do you know a little bit about them?

we're looking got a couple of governors. well there, there is, um you have a newsome who is the governor of california the that there's been a lot of talk about him being a possible presidential candidates. we. we will see that there is the governor of pennsylvania, but then again, they both have talked about him running as president. so i don't know. roy cooper, the governor of north carolina, he's finishing up a his 2nd term. he can't serve more than that is talk about him being a possible vice presidential running mate with campbell a. here's how much do you think this will change? and we, we just, i just read out trump the truth, social post. uh, how much is this going to change the republican presidential campaign strategy? well, before you go to that, can we just look at the text of that that post that he sent out? i mean, this is a moment when donald trump could have been the candidate for unit 5 of the country

. it could have been the moment that this he could have said despite our differences, i want to congratulate joe biden. you know, this is the, this is the moment where you shed party coats and you come together is one, but we didn't get that from donald trump. i mean, he was just blasting a bite and as if it was just any other day. and that's, i think that's, that's very disappointing. and i think a lot of people will be disappointed to see that even maybe some, maybe some of his supporters. and we saw a little bit of that with trump, with his republican convention speech trying and starting out with the unity message, right. but ending up in a morass of accusations and, and of fake elections and, and so on and so forth. yeah, i mean, either then the, i would say the 48 hours after the assassination attempt more and more people were talking about maybe this would change donald trump forever. you know, an a man who almost died or could have died just dodge the bullet. had he had an

tiffany? has he changed his, his lease on life of has him as moral compass been recalibrate and monday night at the republican national convention, you saw him come in. he was visibly moved and shaken by the events of the past 72 hours. but as you said, when he gave his speech his acceptance speech, it was the longest televised speech of a presidential candidate at a convention where the 90 minutes he went off script. uh, and he just, you know, he attacked the attack the tags to be, if there was going to be a different kinder, gentler donald trump. it didn't last long. do you think he fears harris more than by? well, if you were to ask him, he would say no, he was as he has said, that he thinks that a couple of harris is an easy or candidate to the beat then job. i mean, so he.