US: Joe Biden Ends 2024 Re-Election Campaign; Nominates Kamala Harris

In a stunning decision, embattled US President Joe Biden on Sunday announced that he was withdrawing from the race to be the next President in 2024 and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic Party's new nominee.

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Biden's decision to nominate Harris, who is of both Indian and African origin, follows weeks of intense pressure from fellow Democrats after his disastrous presidential debate performance against his Republican rival and former US President Donald Trump last month.

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

In a phone call with CNN minutes after Biden announced his exit from the race, Trump described Biden as “the worst President by far in the history of our country.”

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson urged President Biden to resign from office shortly after the president announced he would not seek reelection.

“If Joe Biden is not fit to run for President, he is not fit to serve as President. He must resign the office immediately. November 5 cannot arrive soon enough,” Johnson, a prominent Republican, said in a statement posted on X.

But Biden campaign cochair Cedric Richmond said President Biden did the right thing by endorsing Harris after dropping out of the race.

Harris has been serving as the US Vice President since 2021,... when she became America’s first female, first Black and first South Asian Vice President.

“He picked her as his running mate. He got a chance to see how smart, how tough, how good she is,” Richmond said about the 59-year-old Vice President.