Joe Biden Reveals How He Knew He Had to Step Aside

In his first interview since deciding not to seek reelection and passing the baton to Vice President Kamala Harris , President Joe Biden told CBS News’ chief election & campaign correspondent Robert Costa that he felt an “obligation to the country to do the most important thing you can do, and that is we must, we must, we must defeat Trump.” After seeing polls that showed a “neck and neck race” between himself and Donald Trump —a generous reading of the dire situation for his campaign—Biden said it wasn’t until he reckoned with the down ballot consequences of staying in the race that he truly considered dropping out. “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,” he said. “I thought it would be a real distraction.” In a clip from the interview released last week, Biden warned that if Trump loses in November, he’s “not confident at all” that there will be a peaceful transfer of power.

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