And it is now 3.30 on the East Coast and just to update everyone who is just joining us, President Biden has made the decision to drop out of the 2024 presidential contest. This happened at about 1.45 Eastern Time, so almost two hours ago, informing his campaign team just a minute before he put this statement out where he said, it has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your president 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. President Biden has also endorsed his vice president Kamala Harris to be the Democratic nominee and we have also heard from the Clintons in a joint statement saying they endorse the vice president to become the nominee because in their words, America's future depends on it. They say they have been through many ups and downs but the Clinton saying nothing has made us more worried for our country than the threat posed by a second Trump term. I want to bring in Ed O'Keefe who covers the White House as well and this has been a difficult decision for President Biden who has been described as very angry as he is still recovering from COVID at his home in Delaware. What ultimately moved him to make this decision? Well, we're still trying to figure out exactly what it was but there were obviously a collection of things that were occurring and the latest that had come essentially in the overnight hours is the fact that money was becoming an issue. Donald Trump now has more money on hand than Joe Biden does in his campaign coffers and so that was a signal that after weeks of hearing that donors were withholding large sums of money not only to his campaign but to the various super PACs that run ads and try to find people across the country to turn out and vote that it was going to become difficult to keep the lights on conceivably in the coming weeks and to pay for the advertising and the travel and the staffing necessary across the country so that was another factor that had emerged just in the last day essentially we don't know that that is necessarily the one but it is a big data point that affects any candidate when they're in the crunch if they start to see money issues. This appears to be coming to be becoming a conversation about how do we formally nominate her the vice president and then who do we pick as her running mate there are no indications yet and Bob has reported this as well that there are no others currently planning to step up and challenge her after the president said what he said this afternoon endorsing his running mate but there will be a conversation about who is most palatable who makes the most sense to be on the ticket with her we've heard about a handful of governors some senators as well across the country from key swing states that could conceivably help we've seen some statements from some of those that had raised concerns about the president recent days let's look at this list for example here you have the Kentucky governor Andy Beshear the
現在是美國東海岸時間3點30分,向剛剛加入我們的各位通報一下,拜登總統決定退出2024年總統競選。這發生在東部時間1點45分左右,也就是將近兩個小時之前,就在他發表這份聲明的前一分鐘,他還通知了他的競選團隊,他在聲明中說:"擔任你們的總統是我一生中最大的榮幸,雖然我一直有意尋求連任,但我相信,在我剩餘的任期內,我應該退出競選,專注於履行我作為總統的職責,這符合我的政黨和國家的最佳利益。拜登總統還支持他的副總統卡馬拉-哈里斯(Kamala Harris)成為民主黨提名人,我們也聽到克林頓夫婦在一份聯合聲明中