Joe Biden Interview on CBS Sunday Morning

Joseph R. Biden, 46th president of the United States. His has been a challenging, complicated term of office, quite literally from day one. He's reflecting on the stakes for this election and on his legacy with chief election and campaign correspondent Robert Costa.

We're living through history.

We really are.

Let's begin with your decision. You're at your home, Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, late July with your family, and you make this historic decision. Tell me the story.

Look, the polls we had showed that it was the neck-and-neck race, would've been down to the wire. But what happened was a number of my Democratic colleagues in the House and Senate thought that I was going to hurt them in the races, and I was concerned if I stayed in the race, that would be the topic. You'd be interviewing me about why did Nancy Pelosi say, why did someone... And I thought it'd be a real distraction, number one. Number two, when I ran the first time, I thought of myself as being a transition president. I can't even say how old I am. It's hard for me to get out of my mouth. But things got moving so quickly it didn't happen. And the combination was that I thought it was a critical issue for me, still is, not a joke, maintaining this democracy. But I thought it was important because although I was a great honor being president, I think I have an obligation to the country to do the most important thing you can do, and that is we must, we must, we must defeat Trump.

I saw those images of your family in the Oval Office sitting just over to your left as you addressed the nation, they came up to you after the speech. What did you say to them?

It's what they said to me. They said... My grandchildren call me pop, my children call me dad. And they said they were proud, and it mattered to me a lot.

When I saw you with your family in the Oval, I wondered, is he thinking of Beau too?

Look, I can honestly say that I think them all the time. Whenever I have a decision that's really hard to make, I literally ask myself, "What do Beau do?" He should be sitting here and being interviewed, not me. He was really a fine man. Beau was committed to my staying committed. We had a conversation toward the end when he was... We knew he wasn't going to live, and he said, "Dad, I know. We know it's going to happen." He said, "I'm going to be okay, dad. I'm all right. I'm not afraid. But Dad, you got to make me promise." I said, "What's that, Beau?" He said, "I know when it happens, you're going to want to quit. You're not going to stay engaged." He went to me like that, he said, "Look at me. Look at me, dad. Give me your word as a Biden when I go, you'll stay engaged. Give me your word, give me your word." And I did. And then that's why... I had not planned on running after he died. And then Charlottesville happened.

In 2017, white supremacist demonstrations in Charlottesville, Virginia turned deadly, when on August 12th, Heather Heyer, a civil rights activist, was murdered in what the Justice Department called a hate-inspired act of domestic terrorism. Biden has long traced his decision to run in 2020 to that moment. (04:05) It really is the beginning of your journey to the presidency. As you look at American democracy seven years later, how do you see it?

When I spoke to the mom who lost her daughter as a consequence of those neo-Nazis and white supremacists come out of fields in America with torches, carrying Nazi banners, singing the same sick anti-Semitic vile that was sung in Germany in the '30s, and when her daughter was killed, the press went to then President Trump and said, "What do you think?" He said, "They're very fine people on both sides." I knew then I knew how to do something, and that's how I decided to run, because democracy was literally at stake. And then he made... He evidenced everything that we thought. January 6th, when attack on the Capitol, he talked about now... Because he now talks about making sure they're all let out of prison, they're going to pardon them. Think of this, every other time the Ku Klux Klan has been involved, they've worn hoods so they're not identified. Under his presidency they came out of those woods with no hoods, knowing they had an ally. That's how I read it. They knew they had an ally in the White House. And he stepped up for them.

Are you confident that there will be a peaceful transfer of power in January, 2025?

If Trump wins, no, I'm not confident at all. I mean, if Trump loses, I'm not confident at all. He means what he says. We don't take him seriously. He means it. All the stuff about, "If we lose, there'll be a bloodbath, have me installed..." Look what they're trying to do now in the local election districts where people count the votes or electors or putting people in place in states that they're going to count the votes. You can't love your country only when you win.

Trump has said his remarks on Charlottesville were not intended to praise white nationalists and that he was warning of economic carnage when he said bloodbath. But Trump isn't the only thing on Biden's mind. (06:32) You have about five months left in your presidency. You're managing two wars, domestic policy, the economy. On foreign policy, Israel's war with Hamas. Is a ceasefire possible before the end of your term?

Yes, it's still possible. The plan I put together, endorsed by the G7, endorsed by the UN Security Council, et cetera, is still viable. And I'm working literally every single day, and my whole team, to see to it that it doesn't escalate into a regional war. But it easily can.

You've had a lot of ambition. Some senators told me in March of 2021, you took him into the Oval Office and pointed up at FDR's portrait and said, "We're going big. We're going in that direction."

I did, and we have, with a great help of so many people. Look, democracy works, and it was very important to prove that it worked, prove that it worked. I mean, look at what we've been able to do. We've created 16 million jobs. I mean, real new jobs. We've gotten around the brink of having the private sector invest over a trillion dollars, a trillion dollars in the American economy. One of the things I fought for as a senator a long time was to change the dynamic of how we grow the economy. Not from the top down, but from the bottom up. The idea of trickle-down economics doesn't work in my view.

You're proud of this record. Will we see you out on the campaign trail for Vice President Harris?

Yes, you will. I talk to her frequently, and by the way, I've known her running mate is a great guy. As we say, if we grew up in the same neighborhood, we'd have been friends. He's my kind of guy. He's real, he's smart, I've known him for several decades. I think it's a hell of a team.

To those who have expressed skepticism about how much you'll be on the trail or about the rest of your term, raise questions about your health, what do you say to them?

All I can say is watch, that's all. Look, I had a really, really bad day in that debate because I was sick, but I have no serious problem. I was talking to Governor Shapiro, who's a friend. We have to win Pennsylvania, my original home state. He and I are putting together a campaign tour in Pennsylvania. I'm going to be campaigning in other states as well. And I'm going to do whatever Kamala thinks I can do to help most.

We had this conversation in the president's private residence here in the White House Treaty Room, where historic peace agreements have been signed. Watching over us, Ulysses S. Grant, the general-turned-president who labored to restore the union after the Civil War. (09:20) When you think about the presidency, we're here in a special room in the residence, so much history in this room. How do you want history to remember President Biden?

That he proved democracy can work? It got us out of a pandemic, it produced the single greatest economic recovery in American history. We're the most powerful economy in the world. We have more to do. And it demonstrated that we can pull the nation together. Look, I've always believed, and I still do, the American people are good and decent, they're honorable people. When I announced my candidacy to run way back for president and I said, "We got to do three things, restore the soul of America, building economy from the middle out and the bottom up, not the top down, and bring the country together," no one thought we could get done, and including some of my own people, what we got done. But one of the problems is I knew all the things we did were going to take a little time to work their way through. So now people are realizing, "Oh, that highway... Oh, the biggest mistake we made, we didn't put up signs saying Joe did it." (10:33) Folks, the people of this nation have spoken-

Four years ago, what Joe did was defeat Donald Trump. Now with Trump attempting to return to the White House, Biden is sounding the alarm in a way sitting presidents rarely, if ever do. The stakes are that high to you?

I give you my word I think they're that high. Mark my words. If he wins this nomination, I mean, excuse me, this election, watch what happens. It's a danger. He's a genuine danger to American security. Look, we're an inflection point in world history. We really are. The decisions we make in the last three, four years and the next three or four years are going to turn what the next six decades look like. And democracy is the key. And that's why I went down and made that speech at Johnson Center about the Supreme Court. Supreme Court is so out of whack, so out of whack, so I propose that we limit terms to 18 years. Anyway, there's little regard by the MAGA Republicans for the political institutions. That's what holds this country together. That's what democracy's about. That's who we are as a nation.

Mr. President, thank you.

Thank you. I appreciate it. It's an honor to be with you.

An honor to be in this room with you. Thank you.