US President Joe Biden’s decision to end his re-election bid on Sunday (Jul 21) followed a series of strategic missteps by his campaign team and White House aides that amplified concerns he wouldn’t be able to win in November’s election, or run the country for another four years.
Biden – like Donald Trump – has had a long history of verbal slips and blunders, famously describing himself as a “gaffe machine” in 2018.
But concerns about Biden’s age and memory intensified earlier this year after a special counsel report on his handling of classified documents, which painted him as an old man who had trouble remembering dates – even the date his son died.
“Hazy”, “fuzzy” and having “significant limitations” were some of the words used in the report to describe his memory. At 81 years old, Biden is the oldest president in American history.
And following his disastrous debate performance against Trump on Jun 27, more questions had been raised about whether he was still fully capable of a second term.
Here’s a timeline of his shaky campaign since that debate:
Jun 27: In the first presidential debate ahead of the Nov 5 elections, a hoarse-sounding Biden stumbled over his words on several occasions during the first half-hour. He appeared to lose his train of thought multiple times throughout the 90-minute showdown.
White House officials said Biden was battling a cold, but the president’s poor performance had rattled his fellow Democrats.
Jul 2: Biden acknowledged his performance at the presidential debate wasn’t his best, but blamed it on jet lag after two overseas trips earlier in June.
“I didn’t have my best night, but the fact is that you know, I wasn’t very smart,” Biden said, speaking at the campaign fundraiser without the aid of a teleprompter. “I decided to travel around the world a couple of times, going through around 100 time zones … before … the debate.
“Didn’t listen to my staff and came back and nearly fell asleep on stage,” he added. “That’s no excuse but it is an explanation.”
Jul 2: Lawmaker Lloyd Doggett became the first Democrat in Congress to publicly call on Biden to step down as the party’s nominee for president.
“Recognising that, unlike Trump, President Biden’s first commitment has always been to our country, not himself, I am hopeful that he will make the painful and difficult decision to withdraw. I respectfully call on him to do so,” Doggett said in a statement.
Jul 5: Biden went on an ABC News interview to dispel rumours that he would bow out. But he ended up making an apparent verbal slip.
“They’re trying to push me out of the race. Well let me say this as clearly as I can: I’m staying in the race. I’ll beat Donald Trump. I will beat him again in 2020,” Biden said, getting the year wrong. He followed up by saying: “And by the way, we’re going to do it again in 2024.”
Jul 8: Biden again vowed to push on with his re-election bid. “The bottom line here is that I am not going anywhere,” Biden said in a phone call he placed to MSNBC’s Morning Joe programme.
Jul 8: The White House said Biden is not being treated for Parkinson’s disease and has not seen a neurologist outside of his annual physicals.
The statement came after the New York Times reported that visitor logs showed a doctor specialising in the illness visited the White House at least eight times from August through March.
Jul 9: After 12 days of withering questions about his fitness for office, Biden gave a forceful speech at the NATO summit in Washington, using the global stage to show allies at home and abroad that he can still lead.
He spoke with a strong and confident voice, pledging to defend Ukraine against Russia’s invasion.
Jul 11: Still at the NATO summit, Biden mistakenly introduced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as Vladimir Putin to gasps from the room.
The US president quickly corrected himself, and Zelenskyy quipped that he was “better” than Putin, but the gaffe intensified concerns about Biden’s mental acuity.
Jul 11: Hours after the Zelenskyy blunder, Biden referred to his vice president Kamala Harris as “Vice President Trump”.
“Look, I wouldn’t have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president if she was not qualified to be president. So start there,” Biden said at a press conference as he responded to a question about his confidence in Harris.
By this time, 13 of the 213 Democrats in the House and one of the Senate’s 51 Democrats have appealed publicly to the president to withdraw from the race.
Jul 11: George Clooney, actor and prominent Democratic fundraiser, calls on Biden to quit the presidential race.
“I consider him a friend, and I believe in him … But the one battle he cannot win is the fight against time,” Clooney wrote in the New York Times.
“This isn’t only my opinion; this is the opinion of every senator and Congress member and governor that I’ve spoken with in private.”
Jul 14: In a rare address from the Oval Office after an assassination attempt on Trump, Biden delivered a message of unity and healing.
Sitting behind the resolute desk, he sought to calm a nation shaken by the shooting. “We can’t allow this violence to be normalised. The political rhetoric in this country has gotten very heated. It’s time to cool it down,” Biden said.
But some media outlets were quick to highlight his stumbles. Biden twice referred to the ballot box as a “battle box”.
Jul 17: Biden tested positive for COVID-19, shortly after conceding that he would consider dropping his troubled re-election bid if he was diagnosed with a serious medical condition.
Just hours before the White House announced his diagnosis, Representative Adam Schiff became the most prominent elected Democrat to publicly call on the president to drop out of the race.
A key congressional powerbroker, Schiff praised Biden but said he doubts the 81-year-old can defeat Trump – whom he called a threat to “the very foundation of our democracy”.
Jul 19: Former president Barack Obama reportedly told allies that Biden should “seriously consider the viability of his candidacy”.
US media reports that influential former House speaker Nancy Pelosi had privately told Biden he cannot win.
And according to a New York Times report, citing people close to the president, Biden has begun to accept the idea that he may not be able to win the Nov 5 election.
Jul 21: Biden dropped his faltering re-election bid and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to replace him as the party’s candidate against Republican Donald Trump.
LISTEN: With Joe Biden out, could Kamala Harris beat Donald Trump?
