Biden says Kamala Harris could take over as president if ‘medical condition’ emerged

WASHINGTON – US President Joe Biden said he is willing to relinquish power to Vice-President Kamala Harris if he wins a second term but is unable to complete it for health reasons – while discounting the likelihood of that scenario.

“Only if I was told that there was some medical condition that I had, and that’s not the case,” Mr Biden said when asked in a BET interview broadcast on July 17 if he would consider being a transitional figure, then turn over the presidency to Ms Harris within two years.

Mr Biden has said repeatedly that none of his doctors have told him he has a serious medical condition. Dr Kevin O’Connor, the White House physician, wrote after the president’s physical in February that Mr Biden is “a healthy, active, robust, 81-year-old male who remains fit to successfully execute the duties of the presidency”.

But his disastrous performance

at a debate with former president Donald Trump in June,

which prompted a wave of calls by Democratic allies to step aside, raised questions about his health and acuity.

In an interview with Mr Ed Gordon of BET News, Mr Biden was asked if there was anything that would make him re-evaluate staying in the race.

“If I had some medical condition that emerged, if somebody, if doctors came to me and said, you got this problem and that problem,” Mr Biden said.

The comment is the latest in a series of shifting explanations by the President about what might cause him to reconsider. In an interview with ABC News in July, Mr Biden said he would drop out only if the “Lord Almighty” told him to. At a news conference in Washington several days later, he said he would stay in the race unless aides came to him with proof that he could never win.

In the BET interview, he conceded that he “made a serious mistake in the whole debate” and would re-evaluate his decision if one of his doctors changed their assessment of him.

Mr Biden also said for the first time that he had expected to “move on” from the presidency and “pass it on to somebody else” but decided to run again because he believed his “wisdom” and experience would help heal the country’s worsening divisions.

“You may remember, Ed, I said I was going to be a transitional candidate, and I thought I would be able to move on from this and pass it on to somebody else,” the President said. “But I didn’t anticipate things getting so, so, so divided. And quite frankly, I think the only thing age brings is a little bit of wisdom.”

It is the most explicit that Mr Biden has been in suggesting that he considered serving only one term in office when he ran in 2020. At the time, he said he would be a transitional candidate who could serve as a bridge to a new generation of political leaders in the party.

That was widely seen at the time by many Democrats as Mr Biden – the oldest person elected to the White House – hinting that he would pass the torch to Vice-President Harris to run in the 2024 election.

But the President’s political advisers have said that the bridge was an eight-year span and that his re-election to a second term would simply be a longer transition to the new generation than some had expected.

Now, with his comments in the BET interview, Mr Biden indicated that he had initially expected to serve one term but changed his mind.

“I think I’ve demonstrated that I know how to get things done for the country in spite of the fact that we were told we couldn’t get it done,” Mr Biden told Mr Gordon. “But there’s more to do, and I’m reluctant to walk away from that.”

The President said something similar during a news conference in Washington in July, when a reporter asked what changed from the time he promised to be a bridge candidate.

“What changed was the gravity of the situation,” Mr Biden said. “What I realised was, my long time in the Senate had equipped me to have the wisdom to know how to deal with the Congress to get things done. We got more major legislation passed that no one thought would happen. And I want to finish – to get that finished.” NYTIMES