Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries endorse Kamala Harris as Dem nominee
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) are set to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday, The Post has learned, becoming the last serving senior Democrats to embrace their party’s presumptive nominee.
The pair announced their support for Harris at a brief press conference on Capitol Hill this afternoon, predicting she would “be elected president in November.”
“When I spoke with her Sunday, she said she wanted the opportunity to win from the grassroots up, not top-down,” Schumer began. “We deeply respected that, Hakeem and I did.”
“She said she would work to earn the support of our party and boy has she done so in short order,” he went on.
“So now that the process has played out from the grassroots, bottom up, we are here today to throw our support behind Vice President Kamala Harris!” he said, breaking into applause by himself at the microphone.
“I’m clapping, you don’t have to,” he added sheepishly before letting out a laugh. “It’s a happy day, what can I say?”
Jeffries celebrated the president for having “made the selfless decision to pass the torch to Vice President Kamala Harris, who is ready, willing and able to lead us into the future.”
What to know about President Biden's decision to drop out of the 2024 presidential race:
- President Biden announced Sunday he is dropping out of the 2024 presidential race — after weeks of prominent Democrats and donors calling on him to withdraw following his disastrous performance in the first presidential debate.
- In a letter posted on X Sunday afternoon, Biden admitted that it is in the “best interest of my party and country” for him to step down as the Democratic nominee.
- Biden wrote that he intends to serve out the remainder of his term and will address the country on his decision later this week.
- In a follow-up X post, Biden endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for the suddenly open Democratic nomination. “Today I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year,” the president wrote.
- Former President Donald Trump reacted to the news by labeling Biden the “worst president in the history of our country” in a call with CNN.
He claimed that the veep’s candidacy had already “energized” the party after weeks of infighting due to mounting concerns over Biden’s age and mental fitness.
Harris clinched 2,214 Democratic delegates on Monday, according to a survey conducted by the Associated Press, surpassing the minimum of 1,976 needed to receive her party’s nomination at the convention in Chicago later this month.
House Speaker emerita Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) became the first top Democrat in Congress to endorse Harris on Monday, calling her “brilliantly astute” and claiming to have “full confidence that she will lead us to victory in November.”
Democratic governors — many of whom are now vying to be her running-mate — and state party chairs had already gotten in line to back the vice president’s rise to the top of the 2024 ticket.
The latest on President Biden’s decision to drop out of the 2024 presidential race:
- Biden drops out of presidential race: live updates
- Kamala Harris campaign flooded with ‘record-breaking’ $81 million in donations in first 24 hours after Biden drops out
- Top Dems threatened to forcibly remove Biden from office unless he resigned, set him up to fail at Trump debate: sources
- Schumer, Pelosi played ‘good cop, bad cop’ to convince Biden to drop out with ex-speaker stating, ‘Easy way or the hard way’
- Trump and JD Vance accuse Dems of leading ‘coup’ against Biden, call to ‘invoke the 25th Amendment’
Former President Barack Obama remains one of the few to hold out on Harris, celebrating Biden’s decision to withdraw on Sunday while expressing “extraordinary confidence that the leaders of our party will be able to create a process from which an outstanding nominee emerges.”
Schumer in the Tuesday press conference praised Biden as a “great man” whose “true patriotism” and “profound sense of decency came shining through” when he made the choice to suspend his re-election effort.
“At his core, he’s just an honorable man, a family man, a man of deep faith,” the Senate majority leader said warmly. “We love him. We truly do.”
The 81-year-old president withdrew from the race weeks after top Democrats and party donors lost confidence in him over his disastrous June 27 debate against former President Donald Trump.
Schumer, Jeffries and Pelosi pressured Biden privately to abandon his run, with each sharing stark polling numbers about a potential landslide loss for Democrats up and down the ballot in November.
Asked directly in the presser whether he asked Biden not to run, Schumer responded, “The president has done an amazing, amazing job as president, one of the best we’ve ever had.
“And he put his country first and made the right decision.”
