President Joe Biden Monday delivered an emotional speech to close out the first night of the Democratic National Convention, addressing his decision to withdraw from the 2024 presidential race and urging voters to “preserve democracy” by supporting Vice President Kamala Harris.
President Joe Biden speaks at the Democratic National Convention.
The convention crowd greeted a visibly emotional Biden with a lengthy standing ovation along with chants of “Thank you, Joe,” and “We love Joe,” and he responded with “America, I love you.”
After highlighting his major legislative achievements in the past four years, Biden said serving as president has been his life’s greatest honor and added “I love the job, but I love my country more” when referencing his decision to drop out of the 2024 contest.
Biden also dismissed reports about his frustration over being pushed to bow out of the race saying “All this talk about how I’m angry at all those people who said I should step down...That’s not true.”
Speaking about his long political career—which included a few jokes about his age—Biden said “I made a lot of mistakes in my career” before adding “America, I gave my best to you.”
The president said picking Harris as his running mate was the very first decision he made after becoming the Democratic nominee in 2020 and “that was the best decision I made in my whole career.”
This is a developing story.