Joe Biden's 2024 hopes were dashed in the first minutes of the ...
Holed up in Delaware and down bad with COVID-19, Joe Biden decided to do something that no US president has done before: Step aside.
American history is littered with presidents whose time in the Oval Office was cut short before they were ready.
Nixon resigned in disgrace. JFK and Lincoln were shot. Harrison caught a chill at his inauguration and died a month later. LBJ simply decided not to run again.
But no-one has launched a bid for a second term in office, handily won the nomination, and then been so swiftly abandoned by their own party that they had no choice but to step out of the way.
The political momentum pushing him out of office became too much as Democrat after Democrat in the House and Senate joined the growing chorus.
Despite vowing to return to the campaign trail in the last few days, by Sunday afternoon local time, Mr Biden was out.
Many of his own staff, including some of his closest advisers, were reportedly only given a few minutes' notice before his decision was announced to the world.
"It's been the greatest honour of my life to serve as your president," he said in a statement.
"And while it has been my intention to seek re-election, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as president for the remainder of my term."
Joe Biden's 2024 ambitions were dashed in the first 10 minutes of his calamitous debate against Donald Trump.
What followed was three weeks of chaos — shaky TV interviews, a Hollywood actor's defection, a near-assassination attempt on his rival, and an extraordinarily inconvenient COVID-19 diagnosis.
All of it only piled the pressure on Mr Biden's shoulders.
And as more and more senior Democrats turned, it was friends from Mr Biden's halcyon days in the US Senate and Obama's White House that finally convinced him it was over.
The 'worst debate performance in American history'Is there anything more brutal in US politics than the presidential debate?
The modern equivalent of gladiator combat, presidential hopefuls march into the arena hoping for one good viral moment but risking humiliation, fumbles, and the decisive thumbs-down of the American electorate.
Richard Nixon may have cost himself the 1960 election when he showed up looking pale and sweaty.
Then-Texas-governor Rick Perry watched his own ambitions evaporate before his eyes in 2011 when he declared that as president, he intended to cut three government agencies, but failed to recall exactly which ones.
"Oops," he shrugged after an excruciating few moments during which his rivals attempted to help him remember.
But when Mr Biden faced off against Trump on June 27, he put in what was described as "the worst debate performance in American history".
At times whisper-soft, Mr Biden rambled through some answers, stammered and stumbled, occasionally lost his train of thought and, worst of all, failed to deliver a single blow against his opponent.
"I really don't know what he said at the end of that sentence, and I don't think he did, either," Trump declared when asked if he'd like to respond to Mr Biden's incomprehensible answer on immigration.
Joe Biden was roundly criticised for his performance in a debate against Donald Trump. (Reuters: Brian Snyder)
Mr Biden had rolled the dice on a pre-conventions debate, hoping it would allay concerns about his advanced age.
Instead it turned whispers in DC's halls of power to a deafening roar.
For months, there has been speculation that Mr Biden is a "well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory" who has good days and bad days.
The 81-year-old, who is open about the challenges of living with a stutter, has insisted that while his speech is sometimes impeded, his age makes him a better president.
"I'm elderly and know what the hell I'm doing," Mr Biden said in February.
But as soon as he opened his mouth on the debate stage, a Democratic rebellion against his leadership began in earnest.
"I know how this felt tonight: it felt like a gut punch," former Missouri senator Claire McCaskill said.
"President Biden can't win. This debate is a nail in the political coffin," an unnamed Democratic strategist told NBC.
The Democratic Convention, during which the presidential candidate and their running mate are formally confirmed as the nominees, is set down for August 19.
But a quirk of this election cycle meant that Democrats intended to hold a "virtual roll call" two weeks earlier to ensure Mr Biden and Ms Harris could legally appear on the ballot in Ohio.
Those who wanted Mr Biden gone knew they had to act fast.
The only problem? America's modern political system contains no obvious mechanism to strip him of the nomination.
That left Democrats just weeks to convince the most powerful man in the world to give up the job he spent his entire adult life trying to win, one he had long believed to be his destiny.
A campaign of persuasionBoth Mr Biden and the Democrats who wanted him gone knew the clock was ticking.
"He will not be dragged off the stage," an unnamed official told Axios, which quickly became the media outlet of choice for panicked Democrats to voice their concerns anonymously.
"The goal is to let him walk off the stage."
But Mr Biden, who ran for the presidency three times over three decades before finally winning in 2020, did not want to be ushered out of the spotlight just yet.
"I would not be running again if I didn't believe with all my heart and soul I can do this job, because quite frankly the stakes are too high," he said at a rally in North Carolina the day after the debate.
Joe Biden told supporters that age may have slowed him down physically, but he still believed himself to be the best Democrat to beat Trump. (Reuters: Elizabeth Frantz)
During a high-stakes interview with George Stephanopoulos a week later, he was asked how he would feel if he lost the White House to Trump.
"I'll feel as long as I gave it my all and I did as good a job as I know I can do, that's what this is about," he said, to the alarm of Democrats.
Famous for his strong bonds with members of Congress, his love of negotiation, and his eagerness to pick up the phone for a chat, Mr Biden suddenly went quiet.
Instead he sent a letter to congressional Democrats telling them it was time to fall in line.
And in a phone interview on MSNBC's Morning Joe, he railed against "party elites" who he said were trying to undo the will of the people.
Mr Biden was not just losing members of his own party. He was losing celebrities as well.
Key Democratic fundraiser and actor George Clooney wrote a devastating column in The New York Times in which he declared: "We are not going to win in November with this president."
Biden officials reportedly spent days pleading with the star not to go ahead with his opinion piece, but to no avail.
On July 11, Mr Biden held a press conference designed in part to showcase his foreign policy chops, but misspoke several times, introducing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as Putin, and accidentally referring to Trump as his vice-president.
During a press conference, Joe Biden accidentally introduced Volodymyr Zelenskyy as "President Putin". (AP: Susan Walsh)
Mr Biden has always been famously bad with names and prone to verbal gaffes.
There was a time when his unpredictability and "Uncle Joe" persona were part of the Biden political brand.
But as some national polls suggested Trump edging ahead of Mr Biden, he had no room to manoeuvre.
A series of conference calls with congressional Democrats did little to quell the rebellion, with one meeting on July 14 described by some participants as "tense", "awful" and a "complete disaster".
The call went so badly that several Democrats were prepared to go public with their stance that Mr Biden needed to go, according to ABC America.
But just hours later, a bullet sailed across a field in Pennsylvania, tearing a bloody gash in Trump's ear, horrifying Americans, and up-ending the 2024 presidential race.
A shooting shocks a battered nationThe moment he collapsed on the ground lasted only a few seconds.
But as a hush fell over his rally and a wounded Trump was hidden beneath a pile of burly Secret Service agents, it seemed to stretch out interminably.
Donald Trump was injured by a would-be assassin during a rally in Pennsylvania on July 13. (AP: Evan Vucci)
Then he arose, bloody but defiant, urging his supporters to "fight".
That famous image of Trump standing up with his fist pumping the air just seconds after narrowly escaping death became a split-screen moment contrasted with a string of shaky Biden performances.
Everyone could see that the near-miss of an assassin's bullet had dramatically changed the race, but no-one could quite agree how.
Some foreign diplomats told Politico they believed the shooting had only improved Trump's chances in November.
"We've all resigned ourselves to a second Trump presidency," an unnamed senior Democrat told Axios on July 14.
In a country where four presidents have been assassinated, the moment was a delicate one for Mr Biden.
He suspended attack ads, called for calm, and continued his speaking engagements to prove he was up for the job.
The incident also seemed to have a chilling effect on the Democratic rebellion against Mr Biden's candidacy.
"An American is dead, a former president and others are wounded, and a shell-shocked country is left wondering how to restore reason and respect," Congressman Dean Phillips said.
"It would be unpatriotic and unprincipled to direct energy to anything other than yesterday's national tragedy."
But the reprieve for Mr Biden was short-lived.
On July 16, reports emerged that the Democratic National Committee (DNC) might move up its virtual roll call to confirm Mr Biden as the nominee weeks earlier than anyone anticipated.
Democrats who wanted him off the ticket were outraged.
"All of us … agree that stifling debate and prematurely shutting down any possible change in the Democratic ticket through an unnecessary and unprecedented 'virtual roll call' in the days ahead is a terrible idea," they wrote in a letter to the DNC.
While dozens of Democrats had already gone public with their call for Mr Biden to quit the race, one voice rose above the others.
Congressman Adam Schiff, the most senior Democrat to speak out so far, said on July 17 that it was time for Mr Biden to "pass the torch".
The statement spelled doom to Mr Biden's allies.
Nancy Pelosi is believed to have played a key role in convincing Joe Biden it was time to go. (Reuters: Tim Sloan)
Mr Schiff's mentor is Nancy Pelosi, the former House speaker and party elder, who is perhaps the most powerful woman in the Democratic Party.
"Nancy is all over this," a White House source told Reuters.
"She doesn't miss. Schiff wouldn't move without her approval."
Biden retreats to Delaware as his inner circle shrinksOn the campaign trail in Nevada with a worsening cough and fever, Mr Biden tried to crack a little joke.
"If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog," he said, quoting former US president Harry Truman.
"After the last couple of weeks, I know what he means."
Amid reports he felt abandoned and resentful towards the people he once considered his closest friends and allies, Mr Biden's luck went from bad to worse.
He tested positive to COVID-19.
Retreating to his picturesque beach house in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, Mr Biden could do little as his support crumbled.
House Majority Leader Democrat Chuck Schumer reportedly had a blunt one-on-one conversation with the president during which he forcefully made the case for him to bow out of the race.
One internal poll obtained by The Wall Street Journal suggested an electoral wipe-out for Mr Biden, one which would see him losing not only the crucial swing states, but New Hampshire, Virginia and Maine as well.
In a tense phone call with Ms Pelosi, Mr Biden insisted he had other data showing a path to victory.
"Put Donilon on the phone," she reportedly shot back, referring to Mike Donilon, the president's longtime aide.
"Show me what polls."
Barack Obama remained publicly silent on Joe Biden's situation, but US media reported he was concerned about his 2024 chances. (Reuters: Kevin Lamarque)
Mr Biden's former boss Barack Obama, with whom he has a complicated but loving bond, was mostly silent throughout the past chaotic few weeks.
But Mr Biden reportedly become suspicious that Mr Obama was operating in the shadows to shuffle him out of the spotlight, adding what The New York Times called a "Shakespearean quality to the drama playing out".
But Mr Biden, who has walked the halls of power for more than half a century, is a politician who built a career on relationships and negotiation.
"I believe all politics is personal," he wrote in his memoir Promise Me, Dad.
"Because at bottom, politics depends on trust, and unless you can establish a personal relationship, it’s awfully hard to build trust."
Mr Biden recognised that he no longer had the trust of his party to win against Trump.
After talking to his family, he called his closest advisers and told them he had a statement to write.
He was done.