Biden Gives First Interview Since Nixing Reelection Bid

President Biden will be shedding some more light on why he left the 2024 race in an interview set to air in full on CBS News' Sunday Morning show, but some clips from the chat with Robert Costa, the network's chief campaign and election correspondent, are already circulating. Notably, the president, 81, says that when he ran in 2020, he saw himself as being the "transition president," and that he's now throwing his support behind his vice president, Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, per CBS. Some notable quotes from the Wednesday interview at the White House, his first since announcing he wouldn't run for reelection, per CBS and the Daily Beast:

• On uniting Dems for November: "Although it's a great honor to be a president, I think I have an obligation to the country to do what I—most important thing you can do. And that is, we must, we must, we must defeat Trump."

• On a peaceful transfer of power in 2025: "If Trump loses, I'm not confident at all. He means what he says. We don't take him seriously. He means it, all the stuff about, 'If we lose, there'll be a bloodbath, it'll have to be a stolen election.'"
• On his own age: "I can't even say how old I am—it's hard for me to get it out of my mouth."

CBS Sunday Morning, which will feature the interview in full, starts at 9am ET on Sunday. (More President Biden stories.)