Joe Biden sat down for an interview with the BBC. The former president seemed to have cleaned out enough cobwebs in his head to answer this question honestly. It is impressive that he responded without brainfarts and garbled phrases.
One of the main criticisms Joe Biden has faced within the Democratic Party is that he didn’t exit the race soon enough, lingering when the mounting pressure all but had the writing on the wall regarding his 2024 campaign. We know that other top Democrats, especially Barack Obama, didn’t want a coronation of Kamala Harris. They wanted a mini-primary, which Biden nuked out of the gate when he endorsed his then-vice president, Kamala Harris. The former braindead president said the timing of his exit didn’t matter, a tacit acknowledgment that Donald Trump was going to win the election no matter what.
🚨This is BRUTAL: Joe Biden admits that President Trump would have won in 2024 NO MATTER WHAT!
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) May 7, 2025
REPORTER: "Should you have withdrawn earlier?"
JOE BIDEN: "I don't think it would have mattered." pic.twitter.com/X3y53O8MvV
The answer did not sit well with some members of the liberal media. The Huffington Post described this as a stunning answer, whereas The New Republic labeled it cringeworthy. And yes, they brought up the primary criticism:
It’s easy to play the “what if” game in hindsight. But it’s painfully obvious that Biden dropping out sooner would have allowed the Democratic Party to have an actual primary, in which a diverse field of candidates would have been able to sharpen their positions and differentiate themselves from one another. Instead there was no primary, no differentiation between Harris and Biden, and a brutal loss to show for it.
Biden had previously proclaimed he could’ve beaten Trump in January. CNN’s Harry Enten slapped that down as “flat-out bonkers.” What happened, happened, Democrats. Would a primary have been better? Optically, yes, it wouldn’t have looked like the party's elites didn’t have some corrupt bargain going. At the same time, none of the other Democrats could’ve beaten Trump, either. Second, per their bylaws, all the cash Biden had left in the war chest couldn’t be transferred to anyone else but Kamala. Given how Democratic voters and donors soured on Biden, maybe there would’ve been a windfall from some rando Democrat, who still would’ve lost.
"FLAT-OUT BONKERS": CNN's Harry Enten says Biden's claim that he could've defeated President Trump had he not dropped out of the race in disgrace is completely detached from reality. pic.twitter.com/FZDq6Mcf8d
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) January 8, 2025