Joe Biden regrets stepping out of the 2024 presidential race, thinks he'd have beat Trump: Report

After an embarrassing defeat for the Democrats in the 2024 US Elections, reports are emerging that President Joe Biden regrets dropping out of the race. According to a report from The Washington Post, Biden believes that he would have defeated US President-elect Donald Trump who won the November 5 contest against Vice President Kamala Harris.

A White House source told the American news outlet, that Biden also reportedly thinks that he made a mistake when he chose Merrick Garland as attorney general. As per the source, Biden thinks that Garland, a former US appeals court judge, was slow in prosecuting Trump for his role in the January 6 insurrection, while he was presiding over the justice department that aggressively prosecuted Biden’s son Hunter.

With just more than three months remaining in office, The Washington Post report presents Biden’s clear reflection on the 2024 presidential race. In July, the American Commander-in-Chief decided to step aside and was replaced by Harris after a deplorable performance in the first presidential debate against Trump.

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He was also facing immense pressure from his fellow Democrats who cited polling evidence that appeared to show him narrowly heading in the race against Trump, who was seeking a historic return to the White House.

Biden’s staff thinks the same

While Biden and his aides have been careful not to blame Harris for the loss, they believe that the results would have been different if he was still in the race. Harris’s ascent to the top of the ticket led to a surge of enthusiasm and improved poll numbers but ultimately ended in a decisive loss in both the Electoral College and the popular vote.

In the past, Harris’ supporters blamed Biden for waiting “too long” to drop out of the race, thus leaving the vice president with little time to mount an effective campaign. They also mentioned that Biden’s determination to remain in the race went against his 2020 campaign pledge to be a “transitional figure” who would keep the country away from Trump.

“Biden ran on the promise that he was going to be a transitional president, and in effect, have one term before handing it off to another generation,” Richard Blumenthal, a Democratic senator for Connecticut told The Washington Post. “I think his running again broke that concept – the conceptual underpinning of the theory that he would end the Trump appeal, he would defeat Trumpism and enable a new era," he added.

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Biden’s animosities with Garland

Biden’s regret for appointing Garland as the US attorney general shocked many since he picked the former appeal court judge for the post following the Capitol riots in 2021. At that time, the POTUS said that Garland would restore “the honor, the integrity, the independence” of the justice department after years of perceived politicisation under Trump.

“Your loyalty is not to me. It’s to the law, to the constitution, to the people of this nation,” Biden told Garland at his official unveiling. But according to the latest report, the president had to be persuaded by his chief of staff, Ron Klain, to choose Garland – at the time best known as Barack Obama’s failed choice to succeed the conservative justice Antonin Scalia on the US Supreme Court. Garland’s nomination for the apex court was derailed by the Republican-led Senate at that time.

A While House source told The Washington Post, that the President’s political allies pushed for Doug Jones, then a Democratic senator for Alabama for the post of attorney general. They argued that Jones would be better equipped to navigate the bitterly partisan atmosphere in the US Congress.

However, Klain pushed for Garland, arguing that Garland, reputed for fairness, would send a more reassuring message of justice department independence after Trump.

Despite his appointment, Biden still faced Trump’s accusation that the Democrats are trying to “weaponise” the department as it pursued criminal investigations over his January 6 role and for hoarding classified White House documents. As per the report, Biden now believes that he should have chosen someone else, a view which is consistent among several Democrats. The White is yet to comment on the explosive report.