Former President Trump said President Biden “was not fit to run for president” and is not — and “never was” fit to serve.
The Republican presidential nominee was reacting to Biden’s stunning announcement Sunday afternoon that he is suspending his re-election campaign.
“He is the worst president in the history of our country,” Trump told Fox News Digital in a phone interview Sunday afternoon. “There has never been a president so bad.”
“He is not fit to serve,” Trump continued. “And I ask — who is going to be running the country for the next five months?”
The former president also reportedly told CNN on Sunday that he believes Vice President Kamala Harris would be easier to defeat in November’s election.
BIDEN ENDS BID FOR SECOND TERM IN WHITE HOUSE AS HE DROPS OUT OF HIS 2024 REMATCH WITH TRUMP
Trump also posted on his Truth Social Sunday afternoon, writing, “Crooked Joe Biden was not fit to run for President, and is certainly not fit to serve — And never was! He only attained the position of President by lies, Fake News, and not leaving his Basement.”
Trump said that “all those around him, including his Doctor and the Media, knew that he wasn’t capable of being President, and he wasn’t.”
“Now, look what he’s done to our Country, with millions of people coming across our Border, totally unchecked and unvetted, many from prisons, mental institutions, and record numbers of terrorists,” he wrote. “We will suffer greatly because of his presidency, but we will remedy the damage he has done very quickly.”
He added: “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
Trump’s comments come one week after he survived an assassination attempt and just days after formally becoming the 2024 Republican presidential nominee.
Biden announced Sunday that he will suspend his 2024 re-election campaign amid mounting pressure from his Democratic colleagues on Capitol Hill, top donors and Hollywood stars after a disastrous debate performance last month.
The unprecedented announcement came as an increasing number of Democrat lawmakers had begun to publicly call for Biden to step aside and the party’s leadership reportedly was engaged in efforts to convince Biden, 81, he could not win in November’s general election against Trump, the 2024 GOP nominee who Biden defeated four years ago to win the White House.
“It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your president,” Biden wrote in a public letter. “While it has been my intention to seek reelection, I believe it is in the best interests of my party and the country for me to stand down and focus solely on fulfilling my duties as president for the remainder of my term.”
Biden said he will formally address the nation later this week about his decision.
“For now, let me express my deepest gratitude to all those who have worked so hard to see me reelected,” Biden wrote. “I want to thank Vice President Kamala Harris for being an extraordinary partner in all this work. And let me express my heartfelt appreciation to the American people for the faith and trust you have placed in me.”
Biden added: “I believe today what I always have: that there is nothing America can’t do — when we do it together. We just have to remember we are the United States of America.”
Biden was diagnosed with COVID-19 on Wednesday, a revelation that came on the heels of several TV interviews and campaign appearances in which the president insisted he was remaining in the race. But the interviews failed to reassure supporters and provided critics — including those on the left — with further evidence that Biden was no longer up to the job.
Biden delivered a strong welcome address to world leaders at last week’s NATO summit in Washington, D.C. The showcase served as an opportunity to prove he was fit to continue his current term and eager and able to lead the nation for another four years.
For a time, it seemed Biden could survive the surge of calls for him to quit the race after House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., announced that they backed Biden’s bid.
But Biden, who has long been known for a propensity to commit gaffes, continued to stumble. His missteps included a glaring error on the world stage at the NATO summit. While speaking on live television, Biden referred to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as “Putin,” name-checking Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose invasion of Zelenskyy’s Ukraine has precipitated more than two years of hellish war.
Questions over whether Biden would end his campaign remained the top political story heading into last weekend.
But two blockbuster developments in rapid succession — the attempted assassination of Trump at the former president’s rally in western Pennsylvania on Saturday and Trump’s naming Monday at the Republican National Convention of Sen. JD Vance of Ohio as his running mate — briefly halted the fervor over Biden for a couple of days.
But the call on Wednesday by Rep. Adam Schiff, the Democratic Senate nominee in California, for Biden to end his campaign, as well as reporting that top Democrats such as Schumer, Jeffries and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., had frank conversations with Biden, quickly reignited the political crisis for the president.
Biden’s stunning announcement occurred during the roughest stretch of what was a more than year-long campaign for a second term. Doubts about his viability at the top of the Democratic Party’s 2024 ticket began seeping out into the mainstream after his halting delivery and awkward answers were placed on full display for a national audience during June’s presidential debate with Trump in Atlanta.
