President Biden drops out of 2024 presidential race, endorses Vice President Kamala Harris

The 81-year-old leader's decision to end his re-election campaign follows calls from celebrities including George Clooney urging him to step down.

President Joe Biden is ending his bid for re-election and dropping out of the 2024 presidential race.

"It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your President," Biden, 81, said in an official statement shared to social media on Sunday. "And while it has been my intention to seek reelection, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term."

He continued, "For now, let me express my deepest gratitude to all those who have worked so hard to see me reelected. I want to thank Vice President Kamala Harris for being an extraordinary partner in all this work. And let me express my heartfelt appreciation to the American people for the faith and trust you have placed in me."

Biden soon followed the announcement with a second, endorsing Vice President Harris as the Democratic party nominee: "My very first decision as the party nominee in 2020 was to pick Kamala Harris as my Vice President," he wrote. "And it’s been the best decision I’ve made. Today I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year. Democrats — it’s time to come together and beat Trump. Let’s do this."

Biden said he would speak to the nation later this week to provide more detail about his decision.

Biden's choice to bow out of the race follows weeks of top Democratic Party members voicing their concerns about Biden’s age and fitness in office, an issue exacerbated by his disastrous performance at the June 27 debate against Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. Biden and his defenders immediately pushed back, insisting that the president had "a bad night," as he was jet-lagged and sick with a cold.

Hollywood icon and longtime Democratic fundraising leader George Clooney was among several skeptics, calling for Biden to drop out of the race in an op-ed for The New York Times earlier this month. The Oscar-winning actor and producer is one of many who cited concerns over Biden's age impacting his ability to lead the party to victory in November. He even noted that he witnessed Biden's decline in person at a political event three weeks before.

"It’s devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fundraiser was not the Joe 'big F---ing deal' Biden of 2010," Clooney wrote. "He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate."

Clooney also alleged that he had recently spoken to numerous Democratic senators and members of congress in private and that "every single one" shared the sentiment that "we are not going to win in November with this president."

Also among Biden’s vocal critics are Stephen King, Rob Reiner, Michael Moore, John Cusack, and Michael Douglas — the latter of whom said during a July visit to The View that he worries about Biden's fitness for office in the near future if he's elected to a second term.

The View cohosts Sara Haines and former Trump White House communications staffer Alyssa Farah Griffin voiced their concerns about Biden in June.

"It kind of pains me to say this today, but I think President Biden needs to step down and be replaced if we want to defeat Donald Trump in November," Haines said, urging Democrats to stop "twisting the age issue" by making excuses for Biden's performance.

Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly.