Former President Joe Biden claimed on Thursday that he could have once again bested President Donald Trump if he had not opted to withdraw from the 2024 presidential election in late July.
Biden joined the hosts of ABC’s “The View” — with former first lady Jill Biden at his side — and the conversation turned to the 2024 campaign as the cohosts asked about his decision to exit the race and whether or not he regretted dropping out.
WATCH:
Sara Haines commends Biden for his “selfless and very difficult decision” to get out of the race, but wanted to know what he thought was the reason for Harris’s defeat.
Biden seems to blame it on Americans being sexist: “I was surprised because they went the route of the sexist… pic.twitter.com/IRgS19rfim— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) May 8, 2025
Cohost Sara Haines praised Biden for taking the “selfless” route and stepping aside, saying that Democrats hd been shocked when former Vice President Kamala Harris had then been unable to close the deal. “It was like 2016 all over again,” she complained, and then asked Biden why he thought Harris had not been able to beat Trump.
“I wasn’t surprised, not because I didn’t think the vice president was the most qualified person to be president. She’s qualified to be President of the United States of America. I was surprised — I was surprised because they went the route of — the sexist route, the whole route,” Biden said, adding, “I’ve never seen quite a successful and consistent campaign undercutting the notion that a woman couldn’t lead the country — and a woman of mixed race.”
Biden also told Haines that he’d spoken to Harris just a day earlier, although he would not say what they discussed.
WATCH:
Alyssa Farah Griffin asks if Biden still thought he could have beaten Trump.
He does: “Yes. He still got 7 million fewer votes.”
Biden also dismisses Trump winning all the swing states.
He thanks The View for not focusing on poll numbers. pic.twitter.com/eBrACmqJdR— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) May 8, 2025
Cohost Alyssa Farah Griffin asked Biden — whose exit came on the heels of a disastrous televised debate with President Trump in late June — whether he believed he could have won if he had remained on the ballot through the end of the campaign, and he said that he did.
Griffin noted that Trump had won all of the battleground states and had increased his support in almost every demographic, but Biden was not deterred.
“Yes, he still got less — it wasn’t a slam dunk,” Biden claimed, suggesting that because Trump won the 2024 election with fewer votes than Biden got in 2020, he would have won if he’d stayed in the race.
