Barring any more spectacular developments in this US presidential race, this is where we’ll close our live coverage this morning.
President Joe Biden has withdrawn from his re-election campaign, endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris.
Joe Biden’s stunning decision to drop out of the 2024 race did not have to do with any medical issues, a senior White House official told CNN.
Biden has had no significant medical examinations – aside from daily check-ins with his doctor which in recent days had to do with monitoring his COVID-19 diagnosis – as he deliberated over his political future, the official said, and medical issues ultimately were not an issue.
Even as recently as within the last week, Biden suggested that a new medical problem would be the only thing that could prompt him to reconsider his decision to seek a second term, as public pressure on him to drop out continued to mount.
“If I had some medical condition that emerged, if somebody – if the doctors came to me and said you’ve got this problem, that problem. But I made a serious mistake in the, in the whole debate,” he told BET News’ Ed Gordon in an interview Tuesday.
The president’s last annual physical was in February. The White House has been criticised for declining to make more of Biden’s medical records public or his doctor available for questioning, after his disastrous debate performance raised alarm about his health.
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