Transcript: Biden’s speech explaining why he withdrew from the 2024 presidential race

WASHINGTON — Transcript of President Joe Biden’s deal with to the nation on July 24, 2024:

My fellow People, I’m talking to you tonight from behind the Resolute Desk within the Oval Workplace. On this sacred area, I’m surrounded by portraits of extraordinary American presidents. Thomas Jefferson wrote the immortal phrases that information this nation. George Washington, who confirmed us presidents are usually not kings. Abraham Lincoln, who implored us to reject malice. Franklin Roosevelt, who impressed us to reject worry.

I revere this workplace, however I really like my nation extra.

It’s been the respect of my life to function your president. However within the protection of democracy, which is at stake, I believe it’s extra vital than any title.

I draw power and I discover pleasure in working for the American individuals, however this sacred job of perfecting our union isn’t about me. It’s about you, your households, your futures. It’s about we the individuals, and we are able to always remember that. And I by no means have.

I’ve made it clear that I consider America is at an inflection level, a type of uncommon moments in historical past when the choices we make now will decide our destiny of our nation and the world for many years to return.

America goes to have to decide on between shifting ahead or backward, between hope and hate, between unity and division. Now we have to determine, can we nonetheless consider in honesty, decency, respect, freedom, justice and democracy? On this second, we are able to see these we disagree with not as enemies, however as fellow People. Can we try this? Does character in public life nonetheless matter?

I consider you recognize the reply to those questions as a result of I do know you, the American individuals, and I do know this, we’re an amazing nation as a result of we’re a superb individuals.

Once you elected me to this workplace, I promised to at all times degree with you, to inform you the reality. And the reality, the sacred explanation for this nation, is bigger than any one among us, and people of us who cherish that trigger cherish it a lot, a explanation for American democracy itself should unite to guard it.

You realize, in latest weeks it’s change into clear to me that I wanted to unite my occasion on this important endeavor. I consider my report as president, my management on the earth, my imaginative and prescient for America’s future all merited a second time period, however nothing, nothing can are available in the way in which of saving our democracy, and that features private ambition.

So I’ve determined one of the simplest ways ahead is to move the torch to a brand new era. That’s one of the simplest ways to unite our nation. I do know there’s a time and a spot for lengthy years of expertise in public life, however there’s additionally a time and a spot for brand new voices, contemporary voices, sure, youthful voices, and that point and place is now.

Over the following six months, I’ll be targeted on doing my job as president. Which means I’ll proceed to decrease prices for hard-working households, develop our economic system. I’ll maintain defending our private freedoms and our civil rights, from the fitting to vote to the fitting to decide on. I’ll maintain calling out hate and extremism, make it clear there isn’t a place, no place in America for political violence or any violence ever, interval. I’m going to maintain talking out to guard our children from gun violence, our planet from local weather disaster, is the existential menace.

And I’ll maintain preventing for my for my most cancers moonshot, so we are able to finish most cancers as we all know it as a result of we are able to do it. And I’m going to name for Supreme Court docket reform as a result of that is important to our democracy, Supreme Court docket reform. You realize, I’ll maintain working to make sure America stays sturdy and safe and the chief of the free world.

I’m the primary president on this century to report back to the American people who america isn’t at warfare anyplace on the earth. We’ll maintain rallying a coalition of proud nations to cease Putin from taking up Ukraine and doing extra injury. We’ll maintain NATO stronger, and I’ll make it extra highly effective and extra united than at any time in all of our historical past. I’ll maintain doing the identical for allies within the Pacific.

You realize, once I got here to workplace, the standard knowledge was that China would inevitably surpass america. That’s not the case anymore. And I’m going to maintain working to finish the warfare in Gaza, deliver residence all of the hostages and produce peace and safety to the Center East and finish this warfare.

We’re additionally working across the clock to deliver residence People being unjustly detained all world wide. You realize, we’ve come up to now since my inauguration. On that day, I instructed you as I stood in that winter — we stood in a winter of peril and a winter of prospects, peril and prospects. We have been within the grip of the worst pandemic within the century, the worst financial disaster because the Nice Melancholy, the worst assault on our democracy because the Civil Warfare, however we got here collectively as People, and we bought via it. We emerged stronger, extra affluent and safer.

At the moment, we’ve got the strongest economic system on the earth, creating practically 16 million new jobs — a report. Wages are up, inflation continues to return down, the racial wealth hole is the bottom it’s been in 20 years. We’re actually rebuilding our complete nation, city, suburban, rural and tribal communities. Manufacturing has come again to America.

We’re main the world once more in chips and science and innovation. We lastly beat Massive Pharma in any case these years, to decrease the price of pharmaceuticals for seniors, and I’m going to maintain preventing to verify we decrease the associated fee for everybody, not simply seniors.

Extra individuals have well being care at this time in America than ever earlier than. And I signed some of the important legal guidelines serving to hundreds of thousands of veterans and their households who have been uncovered to poisonous supplies. You realize, essentially the most important local weather legislation ever, ever within the historical past of the world, the primary main gun security legislation in 30 years. And at this time, violent crime fee is at a 50-year low.

We’re additionally securing our border. Border crossings are decrease at this time than when the earlier administration left workplace. And I’ve stored my dedication to nominate the primary Black girl to the Supreme Court docket of america of America. I additionally stored my dedication to have an administration that appears like America and be a president for all People.

That’s what I’ve achieved. I ran for president 4 years in the past as a result of I believed, and nonetheless do, that the soul of America was at stake. The very nature of who we’re was at stake and that’s nonetheless the case. America is an concept, an concept stronger than any military, greater than any ocean, extra highly effective than any dictator or tyrant.

It’s essentially the most highly effective concept within the historical past of the world. That concept is that we maintain these truths to be self-evident. We’re all created equal, endowed by our creator with sure inalienable rights, life, liberty, pursuit of happiness. We’ve by no means totally lived as much as it, to this sacred concept, however we’ve by no means walked away from it both and I don’t consider the American individuals will stroll away from it now.

In only a few months, the American individuals will select the course of America’s future. I made my selection. I made my views identified. I want to thank our nice Vice President Kamala Harris. She’s skilled, she’s powerful, she’s succesful. She’s been an unimaginable associate to me and a frontrunner for our nation. Now the selection is as much as you, the American individuals.

Once you make that selection, bear in mind the phrases of Benjamin Franklin. It’s hanging on my wall right here within the Oval Workplace, alongside the bust of Dr. King and Rosa Parks and Cesar Chavez. When Ben Franklin was requested as he emerged from the conference occurring, whether or not the founders have given America a monarchy or republic, Franklin’s response was “a republic, if you happen to can maintain it.” A republic if you happen to can maintain it. Whether or not we maintain our republic is now in your fingers.

My fellow People, it’s been the privilege of my life to serve this nation for over 50 years. Nowhere else on earth might a child with a stutter from modest beginnings in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and Claymont, Delaware, at some point sit behind the Resolute Desk within the Oval Workplace as President of america, however right here I’m. That’s what’s so particular about America.

We’re a nation of promise and prospects, of dreamers and doers, of odd People doing extraordinary issues. I’ve given my coronary heart and my soul to our nation, like so many others. I’ve been blessed one million occasions in return with the love and assist of the American individuals. I hope you’ve got some concept how grateful I’m to all of you.

The wonderful thing about America is right here kings and dictators don’t rule, the individuals do. Historical past is in your fingers. The facility is in your fingers. The thought of America lies in your fingers. We simply must maintain religion, maintain the religion and bear in mind who we’re. We’re america of America and there’s merely nothing, nothing past our capability once we do it collectively.

So let’s act collectively, protect our democracy. God bless you all and will God defend our troops. Thanks.