Biden to deliver Oval Office address on decision not to seek reelection as Harris and Trump hit the trail

President Joe Biden is set to deliver one of the most historic speeches in his half-century life in politics as he addresses the nation from the Oval Office on Wednesday about his decision to drop out of the 2024 presidential race.

President Joe Biden is set to deliver one of the most historic speeches in his half-century life in politics as he addresses the nation from the Oval Office on Wednesday about his decision to drop out of the 2024 presidential race. His 8 p.m. speech will be his first extensive remarks since his announcement Sunday that he was not running and was endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris — a stunning moment that capped off weeks of Democratic anxiety about the top of the ticket. Harris, who quickly secured the backing of enough delegates to win the Democratic nomination, hit the campaign trail Tuesday in the key battleground state of Wisconsin, where she sought to draw a contrast with Donald Trump. The former president will hold his first campaign rally since Biden dropped out in North Carolina on Wednesday. Biden, who returned to the White House on Tuesday after testing negative for Covid-19, began drafting his highly anticipated address while isolating with the virus in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, senior officials told CNN. The president and his longtime communications aide, Mike Donilon, began early work on the speech shortly after Biden went public with his decision to exit the race, after three weeks of mounting intraparty pressure. (Donilon, a former pollster, played an instrumental role in presenting the data that informed Biden’s decision to step aside.) The president intends to use the prime-time remarks to reveal to the American people how he arrived at the painful decision, sources told CNN, which he said in his letter Sunday he believed was “in the best interest of my party and the country.”