Sad and energizing. That’s how Ben Rhodes, former U.S. President Barack Obama’s deputy national security adviser and a prominent voice in U.S. politics, described President Joe Biden’s historic decision to drop out of the November election and pass the baton to his vice president, Kamala Harris.
Sad because after 50 years in public service, Biden is essentially acknowledging he is nearing the end of his career, and “that's an incredibly difficult and painful decision.”
“If you look at President Biden, the hardest thing that somebody can do is kind of reach the determination that it’s not in the best interest of the country, or the fortunes of the Democratic Party, to continue on,” Rhodes told Devex Editor-in-Chief and President Raj Kumar during a Devex Pro Live interview on Monday.