US President Joe Biden has appeared in an interview for the first time since he stepped back from the presidential election 2024 bid and revealed why he decided to abandon the campaign. 

Talking on the CBS News Sunday Morning show, Biden disclosed that he dropped his reelection bid solely because he didn't want to hinder the Democratic Party from focusing on the main task, which is to defeat former president Donald Trump in the US election on November 5, 2024. 

“The polls we had shown that it was a neck-and-neck race, would have been down to the wire […] But 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,” stated the president on CBS.

President Biden also explained how his candidacy would have become a distraction from the real task saying, “And I was concerned if I stayed in the race, that would be the topic. You’d be interviewing me about ‘Why did [former speaker of the House of Representatives] Nancy Pelosi say…’ 'Why did so-and-so …’ And I thought it’d be a real distraction,” Biden added.

The president had withdrawn from his re-election campaign and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as Democratic presidential candidate in July after he was subjected to pressure — both in public and private — from his party members to exit the race.

However, during the interview, Biden adhered that the main reason behind stepping back and letting Harris take the lead was to maintain democracy and defeat former president Trump who is the Republican Party’s presidential candidate.

“I thought it was important. Because, although it’s a great honour being president, I think I have an obligation to the country to do what [is] the most important thing you can do, and that is, we must, we must, we must defeat Trump.”