Hillary Clinton, the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, said Monday that former President Joe Biden’s decision to seek a second term in 2024 was “a terrible mistake” that cost the party the White House and may have permanently damaged his legacy.

Speaking at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan on June 15, Clinton said Biden had reneged on a prior commitment to step aside after one term, and that the broken promise proved catastrophic. “He made a terrible mistake for himself, his legacy, and for the country,” she said.

Clinton argued that had Biden announced in late summer 2023 that he would not run, a genuine Democratic primary would have produced a stronger nominee capable of defeating Republican Donald Trump. “I believe whoever emerged from that contest, whether it was the vice president or a governor or a senator or anybody else, would have beaten Donald Trump,” she said, calling the decision to stay in the race “a terrible miscalculation.”

MSI previously reported that Jill Biden said she feared her husband was having a stroke during his June 2024 debate performance against Trump, a moment that ultimately prompted the president’s exit from the race. Read more.

Biden eventually abandoned his re-election bid in July 2024 following that disastrous debate. His wife, Jill Biden, recently revealed in her memoir that she believed at the time he was having a stroke while she watched the debate. Biden then handed over the nomination to Vice President Kamala Harris in August, who went on to lose the general election to Trump a few months later.

Clinton’s claim that any Democrat would have beaten Trump has faced scrutiny. A 2025 report from the left-leaning group Way to Win into the 2024 defeat identified three core problems: voters wanted economic change; Republicans held a structural media advantage; and left-wing movements on Gaza, racial justice, and immigration were badly out of alignment with the party. A belated internal review of the Democrats’ losses similarly described a party that had lost ground at every level of government for nearly two decades.

In her remarks, Clinton explained the dilemma the party faced once Biden remained in the race. “Once he didn’t move and did not, you know, admit that he had said he was going to step aside, and then decided not to, and held on for as long as he did, we were in a terrible dilemma,” she said.