President Biden’s decision to drop out of the 2024 race this late in the election season is a historic moment for presidential politics. NPR’s Andrew Limbong chats with historian Timothy Naftali.
ANDREW LIMBONG, HOST:
The news of President Biden dropping out of the race today is an historic event. But there are some moments of comparison. With us now is Timothy Naftali. He’s a presidential historian at Columbia and former director of the Richard Nixon Presidential Library. Timothy, welcome back to the program.
TIMOTHY NAFTALI: My pleasure, Andrew.
LIMBONG: All right. What stands out to you about this moment?
NAFTALI: This isn’t the first time that an incumbent president who had a chance to run for reelection has opted not to, but this is the first time that they have made an announcement not at a time of their choosing and just a matter of weeks before a convention where they were supposed to be nominated to lead the party. In our history, presidents usually control their parties. And that means that they decide whether or not they are going to run again, and they decide how they will be nominated, and they decide who their running mate will be. And this summer, in the latest of the series of stunning events, President Biden is the very first incumbent president who is stepping aside from his campaign despite the fact he didn’t really want to.
LIMBONG: You know, and to that, you took to X – formerly Twitter – earlier today and posted, quote, “President Biden’s difficult decision to step aside from the campaign is certainly the toughest of his career and his life.” But then you also add, “it is also a great act of patriotism.” What do you mean by that?
NAFTALI: Given the argument that the future of our Republic was on the line in November because of what former President Trump had promised to do as president, having a weakened Democratic candidate didn’t make any sense. And so the president’s performance at the debate undermined the basic argument of his campaign. And so it was a matter of time before he faced this kind of decision. It doesn’t mean it was inevitable because what happened this summer, which was so remarkable historically, was that elected Democratic leaders in the Congress and older established and very revered leaders who, in the case of Nancy Pelosi, are in Congress, but perhaps in the case of Barack Obama, of course, are no longer in office – they, too, coalesced around the idea that President Biden had to change his mind and move on – ’cause the president himself told us after the debate he planned to stick it out.
LIMBONG: Yeah.
NAFTALI: And so the fact that he was pushed by leaders of his own party was unprecedented. In the past, we have had singular members of a party challenge an incumbent president for renomination but not all the leaders of the party. In this case, there was almost unity. That was unprecedented and very difficult. One can imagine how difficult that was for President Biden just personally and for his family. What made this decision an act of patriotism was that he put country before his own power. He recognized that the sands were shifting and knew that if he stayed, it would be against the better judgment of the leaders of a party he’d been devoted to for 50 years and that, ultimately, he was putting at risk his own legacy. After all, he was elected to end Trump chaos. And if he were, by his own indecision, to open the door to a renewal of Trump chaos starting in 2025, his legacy would be fundamentally different. Now, by stepping aside – we can argue later whether it was a little on the late side. Nevertheless, by stepping aside before his convention, he makes possible the reinvigoration of the Democratic ticket and a true race against the Trump/Vance ticket.
LIMBONG: You know, you pointed out before how this is a unique moment. This has its own shape. But are there comparable touchstones throughout history?
NAFTALI: There’s a moment 50 years ago when an incumbent president was asked to relinquish power for the sake of the country. That was Richard Nixon. It wouldn’t be fair to President Biden to put him in the same camp. No one’s asking him to leave office, nor has he disgraced the nation through his actions.
LIMBONG: Well, some Republicans are hinting that he should leave office, if – you know.
NAFTALI: But there was a moment, of course, in the summer of ’74, when the leaders of the president’s party felt that it would be the best thing for the party if the president were no longer the head of the party. But as I said, that’s – there are similarities there, but it’d be unfair to President Biden and historically inaccurate to suggest this is a parallel. But if you’re looking for an example where the head of the party is pushed aside, I would say, in this case, more gently than in the summer of ’74, then there is an echo here of what happened in 1974.
LIMBONG: How do you think this will be written about in the Biden history books?
NAFTALI: I believe that historians don’t always agree, but I would say the main thrust of what we will read about President Biden will depend on the outcome of the election in November. I suspect that historians will be kind to him, not only for what he achieved in 3 1/2 years but for the fact that he had to wrestle with his own physical decline, and ultimately did the right thing for the country. If, however, Donald Trump is reelected, there will always be this debate about timing, just as people discuss Justice Ginsburg’s decision. So that I can’t – we can’t predict that yet because we don’t know what’s going to happen in November. But I do believe that we will see in the next few weeks, regardless of whom the Democrats choose, a favorable shift in the polls for the Democratic Party. Doesn’t mean that the Democrat soon to be nominated person will be our next president, but I believe we’re back in a horse race.
LIMBONG: That’s presidential historian Timothy Naftali. Thank you so much.
NAFTALI: Thank you, Andrew.
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