Biden talks of Trump-Zelenskyy Oval Office meeting and exiting the race for president
Jun 26, 2025
Former President Joe Biden talked to BBC about range of topics. including his decision to drop out of the race for U.S. president.
What did you make of those scenes in the Oval Office, President Trump and President Zelensky?
I found it sort of beneath America in the way that took, in the way we talk about now
that, well, this is the Gulf of America, maybe we're going to have to take back Panama, maybe
we need to acquire Greenland, maybe Canada should be, what the hell's going on here?
What president ever talked like that?
That's not who we are.
We're about freedom, democracy, opportunity, not about confiscation.
I can hear your passion.
I can hear your anxiety that the world is changing the way it has.
And for a long time you believed, you said, I'm the man who can stop Donald Trump.
And you did once.
And in the end, you withdrew from that election campaign at the last minute.
It's a question you know, lots of people ask you, Mr. President, did you leave it too late?
Should you have withdrawn earlier, given someone else a bigger chance?
I don't think it would have mattered.
We left at a time when we were, we had a good candidate, she was fully funded.
And what happened was, I had become, what we had set out to do, no one thought we could
do.
I'd become so successful on our agenda, it was hard to say, no, I'm going to stop now.
I meant what I said when I started, that I think I'm prepared to hand this to the next
generation, the transition government.
But things moved so quickly that it made it difficult to walk away.
And it was a, it was a hard decision.
But uh...
Regrets, then?
No, I think it was the right decision.
I think that the, well, it was just a difficult decision.

