Former President Joe Biden said Thursday he feels responsible for President Donald Trump's election victory last November because "I was in charge and he won."
Biden made the comments in an interview on ABC's "The View," his first live TV interview since leaving office in January.
Biden also defended his choice not to drop out of the presidential race sooner.
"I only dropped out because I didn't want to have a divided Democratic Party," Biden told the panel.
Biden was asked if he felt responsible for Trump's victory over Vice President Kamala Harris, who supplanted Biden as the Democrat presidential nominee in July.
"Yes, I do, because look, I was in charge and he won, so I take responsibility," Biden said.
Further, Biden said he "wasn't surprised" that Harris lost.
"Not because I didn't think the vice president wasn't the most qualified person to be president. She is," he said. "I wasn't surprised because they went the route of a, the sexist route, whole route, 'This is a woman, she's this, she's that.'"
"They played that...fairly well," Biden said, trailing off like he did during the infamous June 27 debate.
He also blamed COVID.
"I think we underestimate the phenomenal negative impact that COVID had and the pandemic had on people, on attitudes, on optimism, on a whole range of things," Biden said.
Biden's decision to step down as the 2024 presidential nominee came weeks after the debate with Trump that shocked Democrat leaders over his inability to finish thoughts and his confusion of the issues. Biden spoke of beating Medicare, Trump pulling out of the "Paris Peace Accords," and he cited the country's "thousand trillionaires," meaning billionaires, among several gaffes.
Yet on Thursday, Biden blamed his debate performance on a "terrible night" and waved off assertions from both sides of the aisle that he suffers from mental decline.
"They are wrong, there is nothing to sustain that," Biden said.
Former first lady Jill Biden added they were "not going to let 90 minutes of a debate define his presidency."
Mark Swanson ✉
Mark Swanson, a Newsmax writer and editor, has nearly three decades of experience covering news, culture and politics.
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