Hello and welcome to News Hour live from the BBC World Service in London.

I'm Rebecca Kessby.

In the end, the announcement came via social media on Sunday afternoon Joe Biden previously

so adamant that he wanted to face Donald Trump in November is dropping out of the

race he's backing his deputy Vice President Kamala Harris to become the Democratic

nominee. Many leading Democrats have followed suit, including the Clintons, but not all.

In the next hour, we'll look at the process, the party rules on selecting

a nominee, and take a closer look at Kamala Harris and her political record. What is the

Republican game plan now and do the Democrats have time

to build a strong campaign for November? Some might say the Harris campaign has

already started here she is speaking at a rally in North Carolina just before the weekend.

While many of us have been involved with these elections for every four years practically, nearly every time we will say this is the one.

Well this here is the one.

The most existential, consequential, and important election of our lifetime.

And there is so much at stake.

We can cross now live. and there is so much at stake.

We can cross now live to Washington to speak to the BBC's North America

correspondent Nomea Iqbal who is outside the White House. Nomeer, first the decision itself,

Mr Biden has been under such pressure for weeks to step aside.

What do we think finally convinced him to bow out?

I imagine he looked at the polling data against Donald Trump that's certainly what's being reported it showed that he was

behind by a huge amount in battleground states.

...