Welcome back to News Hour Live from London and the studios of the BBC World Service.

I'm Sean Lay.

Well, the last couple of hours have been about the news from Washington, issued Sunday lunchtime local,

that President Joe Biden was ending his bid for a second term as President of the United States.

But we begin this hour with a statement from the Vice President of the United States,

Comler Harris, who says,

I'm honored to have the President's endorsement,

and my intention is to earn and

win this nomination. It is not yet clear whether that is a done deal however because

the only rule we know is that the Democrat delegates who chose Joe Biden

were committed by the machinery of the Democrat Party to vote for him at the

nominating convention which will be held in Chicago from the 19th of August

but once he is no longer a candidate they could be free to vote for somebody else

there are those signs that senior figures in the party want to ensure that

Comler Harris is the candidate without further ado. Both Bill Clinton and his

wife Hillary, a former Secretary of State, have endorsed her. Notably, however, her name is

absent from the statement issued by Barack Obama, another former president, for whom

Joe Biden was vice president, in a statement praising Joe Biden's public service.

No mention there of the vice presidential candidate.

Let us hear now the statement issued by Joe Biden on Sunday lunchtime Washington time.

It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your president and while it has

been my intention to seek re-election I believe it is in the best interests of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as president for the remainder of my term.

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