Joe Biden Passes the Torch to Harris, Eyes Retirement in DNC Speech: ‘I Gave My Best to You for 50 Years’
Joe Biden was treated to a hero’s welcome Monday night at the 2024 Democratic National Convention when he delivered the first of the week’s keynote speeches — and one that also served as effectively as a farewell to his political career.
Introduced by his daughter, Ashley Biden, Biden paused to hug her while visibly crying, before walking onstage to a nearly 4-minute standing ovation from a crowd chanting “thank you Joe” and “we love Joe.”
Biden spoke for nearly an hour, delivering remarks that frequently felt like repurposed material from his more recent stump speeches. MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow even noted after it ended that only the frequent mentions of his successor, Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, distinguished Biden’s remarks from what could have been the acceptance speech he originally intended to deliver on Thursday.
But Biden did of course use his speech to promote Harris, vowing near the end, “I promise I’ll be the best volunteer Harris and Waltz campaign has ever seen.”
“We’ve not only gotten to know each other, we become close friends. She’s tough and experienced, and she has enormous integrity, enormous integrity. Her story represents the best American story. Like many of our best presidents, she was also vice president,” Biden said at one point.
“But she’ll be a president our children can look up to. She’ll be a president respected by world leaders because she already is. She’ll be a president we can all be proud of, and she will be a historic president,” he added.
Biden’s speech came less than two months after the disastrous June 27 debate against Donald Trump that led to calls from Democratic power brokers to drop out of the race. And just under a month after he did so while also endorsing Harris as his successor. And unsurprisingly he used his time to also throw cold water on speculation among pundits — and outright fantasizing by Donald Trump — that he’s bitter or angry about it.
Calling it “the honor of my lifetime to serve as your President,” Biden added, “I love the job, but I love my country more.”
“[People] always talk about how I’m angry at all the people who said I should step down. That’s not true,” Biden continued, as chants of “thank you Joe” interrupted him. “I love my country more, and we need to preserve our democracy in 2024 we need you to vote.”
Watch the whole speech below:
Biden used his time to talk at length about his personal political history, as well as his accomplishments as president. But the speech also — of course — included multiple instances of the verbal flubs he was known for even before they became fuel for concerns about his age. For example, while talking about the political power of women, Biden said, “women are not without electrical without not allowed to, not without electrical, electoral or political power.”
Biden ended with a message meant to reiterate that he has no regrets about how things have shaken out this summer.
“I made a lot of mistakes in my career, but I gave my best to you for 50 years. Like many of you, I give my heart and soul to our nation, and I’ve been blessed a million times return the support of the American people. I’ve really been too young to be in the Senate because I won 29, and too old to stay as president. And hope you know how grateful I am to all of you. I can honestly say, and I mean this in the bottom, give me my word as a Biden, I can honestly say I’m more optimistic about the future than I was when I was elected as a 29 year old United States Senator.
Natalie Korach contributed to this report.
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