BUSINESS INSIDER
President Joe Biden said Democratic lawmakers pressured him to withdraw from the November election because they feared he would damage their own political campaigns.
Speaking to CBS’ Robert Costa in an interview aired on Sunday, Biden led with that reason when asked about the intraparty push for him to step aside.
“What happened was a number of my Democratic colleagues in the House and Senate thought that I was going to hurt them in the races,” Biden said.
Meanwhile, he reiterated his belief that he stood a strong chance against former President Donald Trump — a point he stuck to when initially defending his bid to stay in the race.
“Look, polls we had showed that it was a neck-and-neck race, it would have been down to the wire,” he told Costa.
But Biden said that amid the backlash against him, he began to worry that his health would dominate election discussions for any Democratic candidate.
“And I thought it’d be a real distraction,” the president said.
