Biden backs Harris as campaign shifts: President returns to DC

Since withdrawing from the reelection race, Joe Biden has not yet appeared publicly. The President remains in isolation due to illness. Despite this, Biden supported Kamala Harris and, in a phone call, appealed to Democrats to back her. "She is the best," he said.

Joe Biden spoke with the Democratic campaign team via phone in Wilmington, Delaware, where Kamala Harris was hosting her first campaign event for the upcoming November elections.

"I know Kamala is with you and you will be talking soon (...) Give her a hug. She is the best," said the President.

"If I didn't have Covid, I would be there with you," he added.

Biden stated that resigning from the reelection race was the "right" decision. He emphasized his commitment to fulfilling his mission until the end of his presidential term, to "achieve as much as possible, both in foreign and domestic policy."

He announced that he would join Kamala Harris's campaign in the coming weeks.

At the same time, on Monday, at least 2,579 Democratic delegates declared their support for Harris as the party's candidate in the US presidential election. That evening, she confirmed this herself.

President Joe Biden will leave his vacation home in Delaware on Tuesday, where he had been in isolation due to Covid, and return to Washington in the early afternoon Eastern Time, according to the President's daily schedule released by the White House.

On Thursday, two days after returning to Washington, Biden is expected, according to Reuters and AFP agencies citing White House sources, to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been in Washington since Monday.