Democrats back Harris after Biden ends re-election campaign 34:38

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This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Bernadette Keogh and at 0900 GMT on Monday the 22nd of July, these are our main stories.

US Vice President Kamala Harris seeks to gain the party's presidential nomination after Joe Biden withdraws. But can she win against Donald Trump? We hear from polling experts and those who've worked closely with her. And the international reaction to a future without Mr Biden in charge. We hear from Ukraine and Israel.

Also in this podcast... These strikes help them to gain more popularity locally and also pitches them as the vanguards of the Muslim, the Arab nation, because they're the only people actually fighting the Israelis in Gaza. What might be the consequences of the drone strike on Israel by the Houthi movement in Yemen?

After Joe Biden's announcement that he was ending his campaign for re-election, many leading Democrats in the United States have followed his lead by backing the Vice President, Kamala Harris, as the party's new presidential nominee for November's election.

Mr Biden's decision, with only 106 days to go until that poll takes place, came after weeks of concern at the 81-year-old's faltering performance in a televised debate opposite Donald Trump. There were more public embarrassments as he got names mixed up, prompting calls for him to go from Democrats and, more importantly, from party donors.

In a post on social media, Mr Biden insisted he was going to stay in post as president until the election. And he also endorsed his vice president, Kamala Harris, to stand against Mr Trump. Our North America correspondent, David Willis, looks back at the events leading up to the decision to quit the race. Well, this would not have been how Joe Biden would have wanted his more than 50 years in public life to be.

to have come to an end. He'd faced growing calls to withdraw from the presidential race, yet the decision, when it came, nonetheless caught many people by surprise. Joe Biden...

was at his Delaware beach house where he's been recuperating from the effects of COVID. And reports here suggest that on Saturday evening, he called a meeting of his senior advisers and they worked together late into the night to draft that statement, announcing that letter, announcing that he was withdrawing as his party's presidential candidate. Now, it wasn't until Sunday, those reports suggest,

that Mr Biden informed Vice President Kamala Harris of his decision after a meeting with members of his family. A lot of White House aides were also kept in the dark, apparently until the very last minute. Now, in that letter, Joe Biden says that he is withdrawing as his party's nominee for the sake of his party and the country, but that he will continue to serve out the remainder of his term in office.

the White House. Now, Joe Biden, of course, originally saw himself as a one-term president.

but set his sights on a second term after he came to the belief that he was the only person in the party who could possibly beat Donald Trump. Well, now he has endorsed his vice president, Kamala Harris, in the hope that she can do that very same thing. And much now depends on whether anybody in the party comes forward to challenge Kamala Harris.

Democrats are hoping that her ascension will energize the party and bring more of their supporters to the polls. And many of them just want a break from the last few weeks, which have seen some very ugly headlines as far as Joe Biden is concerned. As David Willis was saying, Vice President Kamala Harris is the front runner to be presidential candidate. But

But some in the Democratic Party, such as Senator Peter Welch, are calling for an open process to decide the nominee. It's really important for us as Democrats to take advantage of the extraordinary energy that's been unleashed by the president's decision to step aside and show that we're confident about engaging everyday Democrats to participate in this. My view is that our nominee, in all likelihood, Vice President Harris,

is going to be strengthened by a process that's seen as open. So that I think really be terrific for her to make contact with everyday Democrats, not just members of the Senate, House and the governor's.

But Amy Klobuchar, the Democratic senator from Minnesota, was among the first to endorse Kamala Harris. Kamala Harris and I ran against each other for president. And what I learned from that experience was that, one, she's an incredibly strong leader who will bring to this office and to this campaign the receipts.

She, along with President Biden, got our nation through this pandemic. We've seen record job increases. She is someone that knows the work, knows the job. And I also know her as a good person.

Celinda Lake is a leading Democratic Party pollster who's worked for Joe Biden and is also endorsing Kamala Harris. Nick Robinson asked her what the reaction had been to President Biden withdrawing from the race. It's an exciting day on one hand and a sad day on the other. And I am very grateful to Joe Biden for his leadership and extraordinary presidency. Now, you're excited and you already as a pollster have endorsed Kamala Harris. Does

despite the fact the polls don't suggest that she's doing any better against Donald Trump than Joe Biden was doing. Well, actually, the most recent polls do suggest she's doing better. This is the first time voters are taking a new, fresh look at her and...

And I think they're going to be very excited about what they see. She's always run very strongly with women, with younger voters. She has quite a base. She's one of the most qualified candidates we've ever had for president. So it's very, very exciting. And yet in the Rust Belt, in the swing states, amongst the very few independents that are left.

she's seen as she knows as a left-wing, a progressive candidate. I don't think she's known that well, period. Like any vice president, to the degree that they have an impression of her that is derived from their impression of the president. They don't know that she is a fierce prosecutor, that she's taken economic interest to

wouldn't they be even more excited by an open contest?

of the best talent the Democratic Party have got. Do you think that's why the Obamas are not yet backing Kamala Harris, that Senator Chuck Schumer is not, that Representative Hakeem Jeffries are not the key Democrats in Congress? It's not the role of elites.

to pick the nominee is the role of the voters. And the voters have already picked Harris as the nominee. No, I don't think an open process with 110 days left. And she's been through an open process. She ran for president. She ran for vice president. She's been vice president for three and a half years. She's been tested. So, Linda, I suspect you have Democrat donors who sometimes in private ask you this awkward but important question.

Can a woman win in America after Hillary Clinton's experience? Can a woman of color beat Donald Trump? I think that it is very tough to elect a woman as president of the United States, as we saw with Hillary Clinton. It is tough to elect a person of color, as we saw with Barack Obama. But I think it's the right person at the right time with the right experience to

There is a dramatic amount of change in the electorate that makes this the right time, the right moment for this kind of candidacy. For three and a half weeks, we've been fighting a question about Joe Biden and his age. Now we get to litigate the case about Donald Trump. In 2020, we won because two thirds of the voters said their vote was about Donald Trump. If we get a majority of the voters to say their vote is about Donald Trump and not Joe Biden's age, we're going to win this contest.

So what have the Republicans made of this? The party's nominee and former president Donald Trump reacted swiftly to the news via his social media website Truth Social, saying Mr Biden was not and had never been fit to serve as president. The Republican US House Speaker Mike Johnson called for him to resign immediately. So will the Republicans be happy for their candidate Donald Trump to run against Vice President Kamala Harris or another candidate?

Pete Sessions is a Republican congressman for Texas. Michelle Hussain put it to him that this makes it harder for Donald Trump to win, as Kamala Harris polls better than Joe Biden.

She was his mate. This is what I'm saying. We're going to find out what she's able to do. It's hard for me to predict. She's got to decide what she's going to take credit for. And if it's health care, that's great. I don't know that there have been anything that they have done there. Well, for example, lowering prescription drug costs for seniors. That's one of the key things that President Biden's put in essentially what is a farewell message.

Can I ask you about the man himself? Are you happy for him to continue in office until a formal handover in January next year? I would hope that he would stay in office. I would hope that he would complete his term. And I think the country does. We don't really need a person who is

is running for president and trying to be president. That is another daunting task. There are Republicans who are saying if President Biden isn't fit enough to run again, then he should stand down now. I don't believe any Republican would hold that view. I think that it would be quite the opposite.

Mike Johnson said that. Well, Mike Johnson does not know what he's talking about then. Why do you say that? Why do you say that about President Biden rather than about Mike Johnson? For one thing, it is up to them to make a determination what they do. And while we're entitled to have an opinion, we need to have...

a cohesive opportunity for her to go put her campaign together, to focus on that, and then running the country is a different matter. J.D. Vance thinks this too, you know. I just disagree with both of them then. Let me put you exactly the way that J.D. Vance puts it, that

Biden's decision to not run for re-election is a clear admission that President Trump was right all along about Biden not being mentally fit enough to serve as commander in chief. You're confident that he is mentally fit enough to be commander in chief till January? That is not my point. My point is, is that I believe that Kamala Harris in running for the nomination first, she has to run for nomination first.

for another 45 days. Then when you secure the nomination, then you have to run for president. I don't think it's a slam dunk issue that Kamala Harris is necessarily going to have the support of the Democratic Party. There may be an open convention that would be in a month. There could be a lot of things. And I don't think that that's a good task for her to take on being president and doing that.

While Mr Biden was quick to nominate his number two, Kamala Harris, to step out of his shadow and run for president, Bill and Hillary Clinton, as well as many Democrat donors, are also rallying behind her. And she's often praised for her work as a prosecutor and the power of her personal story. But it's fair to say not everyone is convinced. Kamala Harris's opinion poll ratings have been consistently low and her critics cite her frequently awkward public appearances.

Gil Duran was her communications director when she was California's attorney general and has written about her problems retaining and motivating staff. He's been speaking to Nick Robinson.

I think the strength of Kamala Harris is that she's had a meteoric rise in politics, and many people see her as an important symbol of the progress that is possible in America and a sign that we're moving into a future where women, where people of color, where California has a central role in the politics of the nation. And I think she's really captured the hopes and the aspirations

of millions of Americans in a way that has taken her from the district attorney's office in San Francisco all the way to the White House. Along the way, there have been some bumps. She ran a pretty terrible 2020 campaign and dropped out before the primaries. She's had some issues keeping staff or articulating clearly her values and her positions in interviews and in other formats where that's important to communicate strongly.

You know her. You've worked with her. Do you think, first of all, that she is ready to be the president as against to be the candidate, which is a subtly different question? I look at it this way. If Donald Trump can be the president of the United States, anybody can be ready to be the president. So I don't think that's a question. I think that the people around Harris are very much the people who've been in the Biden-Harris team so far. I think this is a question about whether we keep...

the office of the presidency in the hands of the Democratic Party and those who believe in its values, or whether we shift to a more aggressive and aggrieved and dangerous Donald Trump, who has promised to make some pretty dramatic changes that might remake our government in a less democratic form. So I do think... Forgive me, though, that's not the most full-throated endorsement, is it? You're saying she's not Trump and therefore better, rather than she'd be a great president?

Well, I think she has the potential to be a great president. Like I said earlier, she's captured the hopes and the aspirations of a lot of Americans. Right now, we're going to find out what she's made of. Part of the problem, part of the reason for your criticism is she's not a great communicator in some ways. She has stumbled in campaigns, not least on the most important issue she was asked to deal with and the one that Trump believes is an election winner, illegal migration.

undocumented immigrants and the immigration across the border is a problem that has vexed every American president for the past, I don't know, 50, 60 years or longer. But it is a political football and one where the Republicans tend to have an advantage because they can speak in very strong terms about being very aggressive and shutting down the border, which never actually manages to happen. But I think that Kamala can speak to those issues in a way that is less aggressive and

and more in line with democratic values here. You referred to her difficulties retaining staff. What is the problem with her management? Well, I think like a lot of people in politics, she can be a bit harsh on her staff. And certainly I'm not the only person to say that. I will say over the past year,

There has been a different narrative coming out of the office. There's been some stability. I'd also note that Trump doesn't have a very great track record of staff. In fact, he has several staffers who have now gone to prison, including Steve Bannon, who's sitting in prison right now. Should the party unite behind her or should they look for alternatives as well? I think the party is going to have to unite. In fact, I would say the bigger problem right now is whether the Democratic Party

can find a way to unite behind a candidate in the way that the Republican Party has united behind Donald Trump. I think the Democrats, if they think they're picking from an endless menu of candidates and that there's some perfect candidate out there, I think that the cause will be lost. There's not going to be a perfect candidate. There's not going to be somebody who polls 20 points ahead of Trump. And I think Kamala Harris is in the best position to inherit the mantle of Biden. And if we keep throwing it open and creating more chaos,

I think the Democrats are going to be the party of chaos, which would be a strange accomplishment given that they're up against Donald Trump.

In international reaction to Joe Biden's decision to quit the presidential race, President Zelensky of Ukraine expressed gratitude for what he described as Mr Biden's bold steps in supporting his country. His words were echoed by the Ukrainian MP Oleksii Goncharenko in an interview with the BBC's Sanasafi. It was not just Biden administration which was really very supportive and we are thankful for this, but Biden-Harris administration as

So if it will be Kamala Harris, it's more or less...

clear what politics she will continue. If it will be another candidate, that's another story hard to predict. But we hope that whoever will become the president of the United States to support Ukraine today, it's not about Ukraine. It's in the best national interest of the United States. The way we were supported during the last two and a half years, we were supported just enough

to survive, not to lose, unfortunately not enough to win. And I hope that will change and whoever will become the president, they will make final decisions which will give us opportunity to win and to end this war in the favor of not Ukraine, but of our values, to protect these values, to restore international law.

If the winner of the election is Donald Trump, as you know, he promised to put a stop to the war with Russia. What challenges are you anticipating and expecting? The story about President Trump is that he's unpredictable. So he can be very bad. He can be very good. I mean, for Ukraine. What I do know that President Trump was the first U.S. president to support Ukraine by weapons.

Russia wasn't quite so forthcoming in its reaction. A Kremlin spokesman said the so-called military operation in Ukraine was still the main priority and the election in the US was still four months away, so a lot could change. In another area of current conflict, the Israeli defence minister thanked Mr Biden for what he called his unwavering support over the years, which he described as invaluable. And this is what the veteran Israeli politician Yossi Belein had to say.

He was a staunch friend of us. I mean, I've known him for 38 years and I don't know many other foreign leaders who are such friends of Israel and close to Israel.

Sometimes, of course, criticizing the governments during all these years, but he always separated between policy of governments and Israel as a beacon of democracy in the region and as an ideological ally of the United States.

Still to come. These are serial killings. You're stepping over the line now. Never have I been proven by court a serial killer. The BBC confronts a convicted South African murderer who killed dozens of black men during apartheid. It's that time of the year. Your vacation is coming up.

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A new report by the medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières has detailed horrific violence in the ongoing civil conflict in Sudan, including repeated attacks on hospitals and clinics. The report has been published following a week of indirect talks, brokered by the UN in Geneva, between Sudan's warring sides. Imogen Folks has this report.

MSF is one of the few international aid agencies still operating across Sudan. Its report details harrowing violence, with medical workers describing days in which dozens of people arrive at hospital, all of them missing limbs following an airstrike.

Hospitals, markets and homes have been destroyed. MSF says children already badly injured have been killed because the emergency ward they were being treated in was bombed. And sexual violence is rife. MSF teams treating survivors of sexual violence in refugee camps found 40% reported being raped by multiple attackers.

Sudan has become the world's largest displacement crisis. 11 million people have been forced to flee. The UN fears three-quarters of a million now face famine. In Geneva last week, the UN brokered talks with the warring sides aimed at increasing the flow of aid. MSF describes systemic obstacles faced by aid agencies. The talks ended with no clear progress.

Israel and the Houthi movement in Yemen exchanged missile attacks over the weekend. On Saturday, Israel hit the port city of Hodeidah, which is controlled by the Houthi movement, causing huge fires at a fuel terminal. This was in retaliation for a drone launched by the Houthis on Israel, which hit Tel Aviv. So how much damage was done in Hodeidah? And where might this escalation be leading?

Hisham Al-Amezi is a senior Yemen analyst for the European Institute of Peace. Relatively speaking, it's not as bad as what, for instance, over the past 10 years for the Saudi coalition airstrikes. But we've witnessed a period of calm over the past two years. So this is actually the first major strike in this current period.

Also, this is the first Israeli airstrike on Yemen, leading to widespread condemnation, not just from the Houthis, but across the political spectrum in Yemen and also regionally, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman. In fact, the Houthi leader was on TV just a few hours ago saying this basically marks the start of the fifth state of the escalation.

And he promised more devastating airstrikes against Israel. And they basically also said there are no red lines, meaning that they'll also target civilian locations inside Israel. The Houthis have regional ambitions and also local ambitions. These strikes, of course, are pitched as being in support of the Palestinians in Gaza. But the Houthis also have their own goals here.

They want to strengthen their grip locally in Yemen. These strikes help them to gain more popularity locally and also pitches them as the vanguards of the Muslim, the Arab nation, because they're the only people actually fighting the Israelis in Gaza. Well, that's the image they want to propagate, but also it serves their expansionist agenda. The Houthis want to control Yemen, but they're setting their eyes on the region at large.

They have regional players backing them. In fact, the Houthis have managed over the past few months to forge new partnerships with the Iraqi resistance, with Hezbollah, and you're going to be seeing an increase of these partnerships in the region.

It's tense on the streets of Bangladesh. Armed police and soldiers are out in force as student protesters, furious about government job quotas, continue demonstrations even after the country's Supreme Court largely backed their demands. Dozens have died so far.

Yukital MIE is following developments. So these actually started as protests at one single university in Dhaka. And then the prime minister made comments about the protests, which many protesters say were derogatory. The protests then spread around the country. And then you had accusations. And when it really became intense was at the middle of last week when two of the students were killed.

Protesters and human rights groups say the police and paramilitary brutally cracked down.

On the protests, the Bangladeshi government denies that charge, but that's when it's really spread. And at the moment, what we're hearing from Bangladesh, the AFP news agency reporting that more than 150 people were killed. It's really difficult, let me add, to get any information out of Bangladesh at the moment. Internet is completely shut down and even regular phone calls and text messages are

extremely patchy. We're finding it really difficult to speak to people on the ground. What we know is that students are saying that until the government officially implements the Supreme Court's order, their demands would not have been met. But what they're also demanding now is that the people who killed protesters, that those people be brought to justice as well. And why are they still demonstrating?

Well, because there is now widespread anger about how the government has handled these protests. There are a lot of videos that we've seen on social media, some of which the BBC has verified, which seem to show security forces using live guns, using bullets against protesters. We've heard the UN human rights chief say that the...

attacks on student protesters are shocking and unacceptable. We've heard from people in Bangladesh, the few people that we've been able to contact, who say that while this is not a country that's stranger to protest or violence, what they've seen on the ground this time around is unlike what they've seen before.

The Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina, who's now been, you know, 15 consecutive years in power as Prime Minister, she's increasingly been accused of authoritarian rule, of jailing critics, of jailing journalists. It's a charge she denies, but this is perhaps one of the biggest challenges she's faced in that tenure.

Apartheid ended in South Africa 30 years ago, but many of the victims of the crimes of that era are still waiting for justice. For BBC Africa Eye, the journalist Isa Jacobson tracked down one of the country's most prolific serial killers, Louis van Schoor, who shot dead dozens of black men and boys in the late 80s, but was controversially released from prison. All the people that are shot...

were blacks. That's not because of race. It was because of crime. That is the voice of Louis Fonscour. In 1991, he was charged with 19 murders committed between 1986 and 1989. He was convicted of seven. All of his victims were black men and boys. These murders took place while Fonscour was on duty as a security guard for white businesses in East London, South Africa. He served 12 years in prison.

It's a bottom line which makes Louis van Squur one of South Africa's most prolific serial killers. Almost two decades after his release from prison, he's agreed to speak with the BBC. This shop here on the corner was a hot spot.

I shot, I think, two guys there. The alarm went off at that factory shop. I'd never drive straight up and stop in front of the shop. I'd stop two or three businesses away with night binoculars and then walk down. I normally work barefoot, quiet. Sort of get that feeling that, yes, hunting at a different species...

One of Fonskua's victims was Edward Sunis. In 1987, Edward didn't come home. His family's search for him led nowhere. Two years later, they learned that he was murdered and that Fonskua was the main suspect in a newspaper. The police had Edward buried in an unmarked grave. I think if I bring my dad's bones home, his spirits will dance again.

He's not happy where he is now. That's Edward's son, Raymond. He wants to give his father a proper burial. And today his father's remains are finally being exhumed. A checkered shirt is exposed from the earth. It's a shirt Edward's sister, Marlene, recognises. HE LAUGHS

I go to meet Van Squere for the last time to confront him about these murders. I start by showing him a picture of one of his victims. It's a horror show. It's a what? Horror show. It's a blood bar. This is a 12-year-old. Yeah, well, he looks much different lying there.

That's what he was that night. Do you remember describing to a journalist that you had shot over 100 people? Never came out of my mouth. You are a serial killer, you know. These are serial killings. You're stepping over the line now. Never have I been proven by court a serial killer. I don't feel guilty about it. If you or anybody else wants to say that I'm wrong, it's your prerogative.

The families of Fonskoua's victims may never get closure from him, but a sense of peace can come from elsewhere. Today I bury my father. After 35 years, I bring him home today. Everybody in the family is with them now. He's free and also I'm free now. No one!

Raymond Sunis speaking to Issa Jacobson. Now returning to our top story, Joe Biden dropping out of the race to run for president, almost certainly bringing his political career of over 50 years to an end. For many weeks, it seemed he was determined to stay on, despite public expressions of doubt from his closest friends and allies that may have been personally devastating. So what prompted the final decision and where next for the party?

Our North America editor, Sarah Smith, has been speaking to Michelle Hussain. He is, of course, at his beach house at Rehoboth Beach in Delaware, isolating still since he was diagnosed with Covid earlier last week. But he summoned a very small number of his closest advisers around him. He couldn't ignore the growing calls from more and more senior Democrats for him to step aside. But they were also looking at some new private polling data within the Democratic Party that clearly showed

that things were not moving in Joe Biden's direction and that it was time to step aside, not just to protect his dignity and his legacy, but also if the main goal for the Democrats is to try to defeat Donald Trump in November.

finally realised he was no longer the candidate most likely to do that. And then this very swift process of coalescing around Kamala Harris, which seems to be underway, coalescing if not anointing, is that because they have polling data on her that shows her in a very different position? Or is that about, as you said, legacy, that it's the way to safeguard her

his record in the last three and a half years? Well, certainly she can run on that record and say that she was part of the administration who have achieved a fair amount. But I think it's a nervousness within the Democratic Party about having what could be a messy process if people were to fight it out for becoming the next candidate. They've only got four weeks until the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. They have to have the process sorted out by the 19th of August.

There was a possibility that you could enthuse and excite voters by having several very experienced, very talented candidates fight it out amongst themselves at the convention as delegates voted for their favourite candidate.

But the party, I think, has clearly decided that uniting around one candidate, and if you were going to do that, it pretty much had to be the vice president, Kamala Harris, is the safer way forward because it looks very coordinated. The huge numbers of people who are coming out and offering their backing to Kamala Harris very, very quickly after Joe Biden had announced he wasn't running again. Does it look like she can beat Trump? What is her polling like? Her polling to this point is slightly better than Joe Biden's in the public polls that we have seen.

but still a little bit behind Donald Trump, either nationally and also what really matters in the six or seven absolutely key swing states that will make the difference. But Democratic operatives would argue that's before she's launched a campaign. She's been a fairly anonymous behind-the-scenes vice president. That may count against her to a certain extent, but...

If she has millions of dollars behind her and a national stage in which to put together a campaign, which presumably she has been thinking about for a number of weeks now, it's possible that she could grab the attention as a younger, fresher, more exciting candidate and change people's minds.

And maybe the other people who could have challenged her for it, the governor of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of California, Gavin Newsom, Josh Shapiro, the governor of Pennsylvania. They've all put their weight behind her. They're clearly not going to challenge her for it.

And if you want more on what Joe Biden's withdrawal means for Vice President Kamala Harris, for the Democrats more broadly, and for Donald Trump, you can listen to the latest episode of the Global Story podcast. It looks at why Mr Biden decided to quit the race and whether Kamala Harris can unite the party. Just look for the Global Story wherever you get your podcasts.

And that's all from us for now, but there'll be a new edition of the Global News podcast later. If you want to comment on this podcast or the topics covered in it, you can send us an email. The address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk. You can also find us on X at Global News Pod.

This edition was mixed by Tom Bartlett and the producer was Alfie Harbison. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Bernadette Keogh. Until next time, goodbye. Did you know that it's 50 years this week since Richard Nixon became the first US president in history to resign from office? To

To mark this monumental moment, Witness History brings you five programs about influential events in US presidential history. And with all the amazing twists and turns in the current race for the White House, what a time to bring you them. You'll hear about the closest US election in history and from the man who was in the Situation Room during the raid on Osama Bin Laden. That's Witness History from the BBC World Service. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your BBC podcasts.