Doris Kearns Goodwin, a Pulitzer Prize-Winning Presidential Historian, on Biden’s Historic Decision

I read that you were also saying that when Johnson going into that speech he had this very high disapproval rating and almost overnight it changed and I was watching all of the reaction to the president uh yesterday right on Sunday when he delivered his letter that caught seemed to catch so many people off guard all of a sudden people were a heartbroken they were oh my gosh this is one of the most consequential presidents of our lifetime I'm so sad to see him go but I also understand what do you think it did to the American public about watching this man that Millions had voted for to be reelected that people um who had a you know High disapproval rating but also that people knew and I think expected on Friday he had said I'm GNA stay in this race and I'm going to see you out on the tray and all the feelings I think before the speech were mixed together with wanting him to stay some of the you know fervent supporters but others being upset and even angry and feeling he was being stubborn and preventing a real chance for the Democrats to to even begin to win win the race so once he makes that decision and he then people begin to change their feelings back again and realize that he had done something for the good of the country that might be hurtful to himself it's almost like a little retirement for many people is like a little death right but in this case as as was said of LBJ it seemed political suicide to retire because he'd been in public life his whole life as had president President Biden so I think we're going to be seeing you're already seeing among the people talking on television editorials now the New York Times that had editorial is just weeks ago it was time for him to get out of the race Now talks about it as a principal decision and the stock market went way up when Lyndon Johnson made his decision to withdraw because it made the possibility of Peace we'll see what the stock market does now but it's it's a feeling of empathy that I think a lot of people will feel for the decision that he made what what happened with Johnson because that's the most recent example we have of someone giving it up not of losing because we have President Bush and Carter who weren't reelected to another term but what was their reaction to staying in the office even though in some ways they were lame duck so what what can we expect with Biden staying in well you know the interesting thing about LBJ was the reason he said he was withdrawing from the race was that he wanted to concentrate on bringing peace to Vietnam and for a moment it seemed like that might be actually happening he withdraws on March 31st and then on April 3rd North Vietnam sends a message that they'll come to the peace table he said it was probably the happiest day of his presidency he fills a plane with all the White House people and the state department people that are going to go to Hawaii on April 4th where he's going to join later that night after a congressional dinner and then at 5:30 he gets the news that Martin Luther King had been shot so everything changed after that riots happened in the streets two months later Bobby Kennedy was killed the peace talk stalled and then the Democratic party comes together in Chicago again as it was is it going to be this year as well and there's still chaos because the war is going on the anti-war activists are there they fight with the police and then Teddy white the same journalist I mentioned earlier predicted that the Democrats had lost the election that night but fate had intervened who knows what would have happened if King hadn't been killed if Bobby hadn't been killed if Bobby had won the race the Democrats had won then his decision would have been a Continuum to keep going the liberal philosophy that he cared about so we'll see what happens with Biden you know it will make a big difference if whoever the nominee is wins the race that he will have helped that happen if that person loses then people might question could he have done it earlier should he have done it earlier um so we've got Fate that we're we don't know where we're going on this we can clearly know that we didn't know where we were a month ago to imagine that this could be happening