Biden to address nation Wednesday night

President Joe Biden will address the nation from the Oval Office on Wednesday evening about his historic decision not to seek a second term, the White House announced on Tuesday.

The remarks at 8 p.m. Eastern Time will come one week after Biden was forced off the campaign trail in Las Vegas after testing positive for Covid, and three days after his stunning announcement in a letter posted to his X account that he was stepping aside as the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee.

That announcement on Sunday was followed by a second message endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris to be the party’s presidential nominee.

Harris, who raised $81 million in the first 24 hours after those developments, is set to make her first appearance on the campaign trail later Tuesday in Milwaukee.

On Monday, she traveled to what had been the Biden-Harris campaign headquarters in Wilmington, outlining her case against former President Donald Trump while thanking staffers and praising Biden, who was listening and chiming in on speaker phone, as a historic and consequential president.

Although the news of Biden’s decision is already out, his remarks will still carry historical weight. He is the first sitting president not to seek reelection since Lyndon Baines Johnson stepped aside in 1968 due to the growing unrest over America’s involvement in Vietnam.