Buttigieg on new Harris book: Biden ‘should not have run’
Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said Sunday former President Biden “should not have run” for reelection in 2024 and should have dropped out of the race earlier.
“He should not have run, and if he had made that decision sooner, [Democrats] might have been better off,” Buttigieg told NBC News’s Kristen Welker on “Meet the Press.”
Buttigieg’s comments come after former Vice President Kamala Harris released excerpts from her forthcoming book, “107 Days,” about her condensed presidential campaign last year. Buttigieg and Harris are both seen as potential Democratic presidential candidates in 2028.
“‘It’s Joe and Jill’s decision.’ We all said that, like a mantra, as if we’d all been hypnotized,” according to Harris’s excerpt, published in The Atlantic. “Was it grace, or was it recklessness? In retrospect, I think it was recklessness.”
Biden dropped out of the race July 21 last year, less than a month after his halting debate performance against President Trump. He endorsed Harris that same day, with the then-vice president quickly securing enough support to become the Democratic presidential nominee.
Harris, though, lost to Trump in the November election.
Buttigieg, who was Biden’s Transportation secretary, did not speak out against the former president’s reelection campaign before or after the aforementioned debate. He also told NBC News that he “was not included in the process of deciding whether the president should run again.”
Biden initially announced he was running for reelection in April 2023, while he already was the oldest sitting president in American history. The Biden White House publicly dismissed concerns over Biden’s age, even after his debate against Trump.
In May, Biden told reporters he did not regret running for reelection. That same month, the former president was diagnosed with what his office called “aggressive” prostate cancer.
Buttigieg said Biden was the only one capable of deciding whether he would continue his campaign but opted to look to the future.
A candidate in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, Buttigieg is third — behind Harris and California Gov. Gavin Newsom — in national polling averages for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination, with 11.8 percent support, according to Race to the WH.
“Look, we are where we are as a country and as a party right now,” Buttigieg added. “And what matters now is how we build a different kind of future where people, I mean, not just politically, but nationally, where people can see themselves in what comes next.”
The Hill has reached out to Biden’s office for comment on Buttigieg’s remarks.