President Joe Biden sent a message to leaders in his final address to the U.N. General Assembly—his fourth and last time as president—while revealing more details of what finally led him to withdraw from the 2024 race against Donald Trump.
While mostly focused on issues overseas, including the Middle East and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Biden also noted how he “faced a decision whether to seek a second term as president” over the summer.
“Being president has been the honor of my life. There is so much more I want to get done. But as much as I love the job, I love my country more. I decided, after 50 years of public service, it’s time for a new generation of leadership to take my nation forward.”
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Then, with a more blunt approach, Biden added, to applause, “My fellow leaders, let us never forget, some things are more important than staying in power. It’s your people–it’s your people–that matter the most.”
And in what could be viewed as a dig at his former opponent, Biden continued: “Never forget, we are here to serve the people, not the other way around. Because the future will be—the future will be won by those who unleash the full potential of their people to breathe free, to think freely, to innovate, to educate, to live and love openly without fear.”
Biden was mostly hopeful in his speech, reflecting on his decades of service and the trials and tribulations of global crises in between—the Cold War and the Vietnam war in his early days, now replaced by conflicts in Afghanistan, Israel/Palestine, and Ukraine.
“We cannot grow weary,” he said of the myriad conflicts that have blossomed in recent years. “We cannot look away.”
On Afghanistan, Biden said, “When I came to office as president, Afghanistan had replaced Vietnam as America’s longest war. I was determined to end it, and I did. It was a hard decision but the right decision.”
Biden reiterated that “four American presidents had faced that decision, but I was determined not to leave it to the fifth.”
“Things can get better,” Biden said. “We should never forget that. I have seen that throughout my career.
“Maybe because of all I’ve seen and all we have done together over the decades, I have hope. I know there is a way forward.”
His speech comes more than a month after an interview with CBS Sunday Morning when he revealed a key deciding point in his withdrawal was the fact that “a number of my Democratic colleagues in the House and Senate thought that I was going to hurt them in the races. And I was concerned if I stayed in the race, that would be the topic. You’d be interviewing me about, why did Nancy Pelosi say, why did so—and I thought it’d be a real distraction.”
