Hillary Rodham Clinton said Joe Biden made a “terrible mistake” by running for re-election in 2024, arguing that the choice hurt him, his legacy and the country. Speaking on June 15 at the 92nd Street Y in New York City during a live taping of The New Yorker Radio Hour, Clinton said Biden should have planned to serve one term and then pass the torch.
That was the sharpest public criticism Clinton has delivered of Biden’s campaign decision. She said that if he had stepped aside earlier, there would have been a real contest for the Democratic nomination and that the winner of that fight would have beaten Donald Trump. Biden later dropped out after a widely panned debate performance and ultimately backed Kamala Harris.
The remarks mattered because Clinton was not speaking as an outside critic. In 2022, she had said she would endorse Biden if he ran again, a position that made her new assessment of his decision stand out even more. Now she said the problem was not only the debate fallout that ended his campaign, but the original decision to seek another term at all.
Clinton did not stop at party politics. She also said Trump represents a threat of authoritarianism, put his favorability in the mid-thirties and said he has been doubling down on his impulsiveness. The exchange fit a pattern for Clinton, who has become more direct in interviews over time and who still carries the burden of the 2016 election loss.
That loss has followed her for years. Less than a year after the 2016 election, Clinton said she had been coping with prayer, yoga and “my fair share of Chardonnay.” On June 15, she sounded less reflective than unsparing. The open question now is not whether she has turned on Biden’s 2024 decision; it is how much damage her judgment adds to the debate over a campaign she says should never have happened.
