Top Joe Biden adviser has surprising response for why the 81-year-old REALLY dropped out… and what is his ‘greatest’ lasting legacy

Longtime Biden adviser Anita Dunn is calling on the president to step back and fully support Vice President Kamala Harris, the biggest part of his legacy, while also dealing with Democratic leaders who are pressuring him to end his reelection campaign.

She gave her first detailed public comment on his surprise decision to withdraw from his 2024 candidacy, amid mounting pressure from party leaders and growing public dissatisfaction with his ability to serve another four years.

“You know, it was tough. And no reflection on the vice president, because I think one of the best things about Joe Biden’s legacy will be that he made sure that there was a pipeline where Kamala Harris would be the natural person that everyone would go to if something happened to him,” she said. Politics in an interview.

This comment echoes what many elected Democrats did when trying to convince him: it would be an act of supreme statesmanship to step back from his candidacy.

“He ran because he believed he was the best person to beat Donald Trump. And he also believed he was the best person to lead the country. Now, if he’s not running, he’s made it very clear that the next best person is his vice president. And that’s where we are,” she said.

Biden’s decision on July 24 to announce his decision and immediately endorse Harris kicked off a process that has seen some leaders back her, despite earlier predictions that it could lead to a fierce battle on the floor of the party conference in Chicago.

Dunn, who is leaving the White House to join a pro-Harris super PAC, also struggled to characterize his debate debacle as catastrophic, even though it meant the end of his campaign.

“Voters didn’t like Biden’s performance in the first half hour. He didn’t score well at all. But it’s not like they walked out,” she said. “They thought a lot of the second half of the debate was very good for Joe Biden. They hated Donald Trump.”

She recalled “24 days of relentless negative, horrible attacks on Joe Biden.”

Among her most pointed comments was a dig at former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who kept up a series of comments about Biden while taking a victory lap. Harris’ numbers have skyrocketed, injecting “joy” into the campaign by her running mate Tim Walz and convincing Democrats she has a shot.

President Joe Biden spends the weekend in Delaware while Harris campaigns in the West

“You know, there were clearly leaders of the party who decided to go ahead and go very public. And that gave other people permission to go public,” she said.

During the heated post-debate reflection, some Democrats criticized Biden’s team for agreeing to an earlier-than-usual fight with Donald Trump and for not sharing its weaknesses, resulting in what the White House called at the time a “bad night.”

So [former President] “Trump didn’t gain any ground at all in the debate. And we actually gained a few votes in the group. So it was a bad debate, but it didn’t feel catastrophic at all, certainly not in terms of voters,” Dunn said.

“And I think other people who did independent research saw much the same thing. If you go back and look at the polls, you see that there wasn’t a lot of movement from the debate, because the structure of this campaign had been pretty static for a long time, and the debate didn’t change that.”

Pelosi also described Biden’s decision as an important part of his legacy in a recent media tour. But she also told the New Yorker that she knew after the debate that he wouldn’t win.

“But my concern was, this is not going to happen, and we have to make a decision to let this happen,” she told the magazine. “The president has to make the decision to let it happen. People called. I never called anybody. I kept my word. Every conversation I had was with him alone. I never called once. They said I was burning the lines, I was talking to (Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer). I didn’t talk to Chuck at all.”