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By Hannah Parry
Associate News Editor
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Former President Joe Biden recalled a tense confrontation with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer during the final weeks of his 2024 presidential campaign, in an excerpt from his new memoir Promise Me, America.
Biden described how Schumer visited his Delaware beach house as pressure mounted on him to withdraw following his disastrous June 2024 debate performance against then-Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.
Biden wrote that he took the intervention personally, particularly given the years of political loyalty and friendship between the two men.
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"I told Schumer he had a lot of gumption (I may have said it differently at the time), coming to my home and telling me to get out of the race," Biden wrote, adding that he and Schumer had also argued over polling.
Schumer and Biden had worked together for more than three decades, building a relationship through their years in the Senate and later during the Obama administration. The Senate minority leader helped Biden advance major legislative priorities during his presidency, and Biden publicly praised him for his role in passing the American Rescue Plan in 2021.
"Loyalty matters to me," Biden wrote. "If I give you my word, I stick with you. If I say I'm with you, I'm with you to the end."
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The account offers a glimpse into the private tensions that engulfed the Democratic Party at that time, as senior figures attempted to persuade Biden that his candidacy was putting the party's chances of retaining the White House at risk.
Biden has always insisted that he was capable of doing another four years and that he was the best candidate to run against Trump, a viewpoint that does not appear to have changed.
"I believed I was the best person to do it. I was the only person who had ever beaten Donald Trump. And I felt I was the best person to do it again," he wrote.
Newsweek has reached out to Biden representatives and Schumer's office for comment.
Pelosi Also Worked to Persuade Biden to Quit
Schumer was not the only senior Democrat who sought to persuade Biden to reconsider his candidacy.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also met privately with Biden at the White House, where she urged him to reassess his position.
“Publicly she was still saying it was my decision to make. But privately she was working furiously behind the scenes to get elected officials and Biden delegates to defect,” he wrote in his memoir.
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Senate and House Democratic leaders were increasingly concerned about the consequences of Biden remaining at the top of the ticket, particularly as polls showed growing vulnerabilities against Trump.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries also privately raised concerns with Biden, while former President Barack Obama was also reported to have encouraged him to reconsider.
Biden said that he felt increasingly isolated as allies who had previously supported him began questioning whether he could remain the party's nominee.
"I wasn't living in a dream world. Here's where I was living: I had won the Democratic nomination for president. And I had won it decisively," he wrote.
Biden Withdrew After Weeks of Resistance
Despite his reluctance, Biden ultimately concluded that remaining in the race against the wishes of senior party leaders and major donors risked dividing Democrats.
He said he asked Mike Donilon, his longtime adviser, to draft a statement announcing his withdrawal. But Biden did not immediately make his decision public. Instead, he took the statement home and slept on it.
"Believe it or not, I slept well that night," he wrote. The following day, July 21, 2024, Biden announced that he was ending his reelection campaign, saying the decision was in the best interests of his party and the country.
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After making the announcement, he began calling a long list of political allies, including union leaders, governors, senators and members of Congress. His memoir records the names and precise times of several calls including Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at 3:09 p.m. and former President Bill Clinton at 3:14 p.m.
Notably absent from the list were Pelosi and Obama—two of the Democrats who had attempted to persuade Biden to withdraw.
Biden subsequently endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as his replacement, arguing that a contested primary would have divided the party and risked being viewed as an effort to block the first Black woman from becoming the Democratic presidential nominee.
In his memoir he praised Harris' campaign, writing: "She inherited a united party. And she created an enthusiastic one: Kamala electrified the country."
Harris went on to lose the November election to Trump, leaving Democrats to reckon with the circumstances surrounding Biden's delayed withdrawal and the party's unsuccessful attempt to retain the White House.
Biden's memoir, Promise Me, America, published by Little, Brown and Company is officially scheduled for release on November 17.
Contact Newsweek editors for this story: Hannah Parry and Anthony Murray.
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