MSNBC host Rachel Maddow said on her network’s breaking news coverage of President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the presidential race that she is “blown away” by his patriotism.
Maddow said, “I mean, this is just, this is history at large, you know? We all will remember where we were and what we were doing at this moment. What a man, what a patriot. Um, what is selfless devotion to your country. He has been a phenomenal president. He brought us back from COVID. He gave us the best recovery from COVID of any major nation on earth at a time when the world had economically been struggling in the wake of COVID, the Biden economy is literally the envy of the world. He ended the presidency of Donald Trump at one disastrous term. And he did it while being decent and civil and honorable and normal and occasionally boring at a time when boring was absolutely what we needed.”
She continued, “There is no single thing that he has done in that entire career that is a greater or more consequential act of service and sacrifice for this country than what he has done today. Knowing him a little bit, knowing his personality, how I have spoken to him a number of times in my life, in official and unofficial capacities, I cannot see anywhere in his personality where this decision today was possible. This is the opposite of something that is natural or easy for him. He is just not built to do something like this. His superpower is being underestimated. That is why he has been so resolute in resisting all these calls for him to drop out.”
Maddow added, “Him making this decision today is to give the country a chance, a reasonable chance, at not putting Donald Trump back in the White House, not putting a president back in the white house who refused to leave the last time and summoned an angry mob to overthrow the government rather than go. This is Joe Biden saying apparently it is not me that gives us the best chance to do that, that’s got to be somebody else so I will step aside. I’m just blown away by the sacrifice and patriotism this moment embodies.”
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