Joe Biden says he loved being president ‘but I love my country more’ in 45-minute DNC speech

CHICAGO — In President Joe Biden’s inaugural address in January 2021, he said America was in a “winter of peril and possibility.” It was nearly a year into the COVID-19 pandemic, months of racial unrest, and just weeks after a violent attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Now, less than four years later, Biden used his valedictory address to share a hopeful update: it’s summer in America, and winter has passed.

“With a grateful heart, I stand before you now on this August night to report that democracy has prevailed,” Biden said, with tearful eyes. “Democracy has delivered. And now, democracy must be preserved.”

The 81-year-old president was welcomed to the stage with a nearly five-minute standing ovation from the crowd, after hours of speakers thanking him for what they called his selfless decision to drop out of the presidential race. He took a victory lap through his accomplishments, threw his favorite jabs at former President Donald Trump, and passed the torch to his chosen successor, Vice President Kamala Harris.

“It’s been the honor of my lifetime to serve as your president,” Biden added. “I love the job, but I love my country more.”

In a 45-minute address that recalled familiar lines from his stump speeches over the last five years, Biden said the country was at an inflection point, in the “battle for the soul of America.”

He said he ran to rebuild the middle class, and lauded the work his administration did during the COVID pandemic, and to create jobs and boost manufacturing. There is still more that needs to be done, he granted, under a Harris presidency.

Throughout the night — and during Biden’s speech in particular — the crowd broke out into chants of “Thank you, Joe” or “We love Joe.” Delegates waved signs with similar sayings on the blue carpeted floor of the United Center. Pennsylvania and Delaware’s delegations sat in neighboring sections close to the stage, representing the two states the president has called home. When he took the stage, the Delawareans sported his signature aviator sunglasses.

Biden said choosing Harris as his running mate was “the best decision I made in my whole career.” He complimented her as a well-respected world leader and strong prosecutor who would be a historic president, if elected, as the first president that was a woman or woman of color.

“And like many of our best presidents, she was also a vice president,” Biden said to laughs.

The night was much different than what Biden had expected just weeks earlier: Instead of accepting the Democratic nomination for a second term, he gave his curtain call, capping his 52 years in national politics.

Biden dropped out of the race in a letter posted to X on July 21 after mounting pressure from within his party, including from some people he considered top allies.

His decision to withdraw made him the first sitting president since Lyndon Johnson in 1968 to forgo his party’s nomination.

The departure caps a career in politics that began in 1972 when, at age 29, he was elected to represent Delaware in the U.S. Senate, becoming one of the youngest senators in the nation’s history, which he reflected on as part of his speech.

“I’ve either been too young to be in the Senate, because I wasn’t 30 yet, and too old to stay as president,” Biden said. “I can honestly say I’m more optimistic about the future than I was when I was elected as a 29-year-old United States senator.”

Through the following decades, Biden became an elder statesman of the Senate, leading the Judiciary and Foreign Affairs Committees. He maintained a close connection to his Scranton roots — which he noted in his speech Monday — and was often called the third senator from Pennsylvania.

While campaigning, he was adept at connecting with everyday voters, often speaking of his blue-collar upbringing and his personal story marked by tragedy. Biden’s first wife and a daughter were killed in a 1972 car crash and, in 2015, his son Beau died of cancer.

After unsuccessfully seeking the presidency twice, Biden in 2009 became vice president, serving alongside Obama, the nation’s first Black president.

In 2020, Biden tried for a third time, running against the incumbent Trump on a pledge to restore decency to the White House and to navigate the nation out of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Biden’s victory was sealed days after the election when he won Pennsylvania, the state where he was born. In Philadelphia, where a batch of mail ballots put Biden over the top, his supporters danced in the streets.

“No where else in the world could a kid with a stutter and modest beginnings in Scranton, Pa., and Claymont, Delaware, grow up to sit behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office,” Biden said. “That’s because America is and always has been a nation of possibilities. Possibilities. We must never lose that. Never.”

Party luminaries called Biden a patriot, a president who restored a struggling country, and a leader who put that country ahead of his ego by dropping out of the presidential race last month.

“Joe, thank you for your historic leadership, your lifetime of service to our nation and for all you will continue to do,” said Harris in a surprise appearance at the first night of the Democratic National Convention. “We are forever grateful to you.”

As Democrats praised him, Republicans continued to slam the Biden-Harris record, calling huge government spending during his tenure the trigger for inflation and high mortgage rates.

”We keep hearing about their economy,” Trump said in York on Monday. “Their economy’s terrible and the inflation is eating everybody alive.”

Trump said Biden dropping out amounted to a “coup.”

Much of the first night of the DNC was an ode to Biden for his sacrifice by stepping out of the race, a look back at where the country was when he took the White House in 2021, and a vision for the future under Harris where Democrats promised they’re “not going back” to a presidency under Donald Trump.

As speakers listed Democratic accomplishments under Biden, they tacked on Harris’ name, crediting each win to the Biden-Harris administration. Biden himself did this at points: When the crowd interrupted him to chant “Thank you, Joe” he responded, “Thank you, Kamala.”

Pennsylvania delegates credited Biden with preserving American democracy by stepping aside and endorsing Harris, who has reignited engagement in the presidential election for apathetic Democrats.

The Rev. Charles Quann, an 85-year-old pastor from Montgomery County, said Biden “saved America,” when he dropped out of the race.

“In all honesty he probably would have lost to Donald Trump,” Quann said from the floor. “But Kamala Harris has really put a lot of energy back in a short span of time and given us hope so we can win this election, that’s because Biden did a remarkable thing to step down and save America.”

Justin Douglas, another delegate and a Dauphin County Commissioner, said Biden has a long track record of serving people that should be remembered but he called his stepping down a particularly noble final act.

“We’re seeing a legacy, you know, come to an end and I think his willingness to show humility and step back and hand it off is something that is not ever seen or thought about in this sphere of power, of grabbing and fighting each other for advancement. It’s just a beautiful thing to see.”

Staff writer Anna Orso contributed to this report.