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Speech Writing - KS3 - teaching resource

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Speech Writing - KS3 

(59-slide editable PowerPoint-led unit of work with 6 worksheets) 

KS3 English - Speech Writing is a five lesson unit of work which explains how to write an effective speech. It guides pupils through the process of how to plan, draft, write and redraft an effective speech.

Speech Writing - KS3 covers the following:

- Mind the GAP - Genre, Audience and Purpose – why it's important in speech writing

- How to plan, structure and organise a speech

- The key techniques of speech writing

- Exemplar speeches for modelling and assessment

- Identifying problems and creating solutions

To preview Speech Writing - KS3 please click on the images from the PowerPoint presentation.

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Lesson details

Key learning points.

• In this lesson, we will be introduced to speech punctuation. We will look at the punctuation needed and how it should be laid out. We will have a go at punctuating speech from the Aladdin clip.

This content is made available by Oak National Academy Limited and its partners and licensed under Oak’s terms & conditions (Collection 1), except where otherwise stated.

Lesson appears in

Unit english / aladdin - narrative writing.

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Transcript: Biden’s speech explaining why he withdrew from the 2024 presidential race

President Joe Biden addresses the nation from the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Wednesday, July 24, 2024, about his decision to drop his Democratic reelection bid. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, Pool)

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Transcript of President Joe Biden’s address to the nation on July 24, 2024:

My fellow Americans, I’m speaking to you tonight from behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office. In this sacred space, I’m surrounded by portraits of extraordinary American presidents. Thomas Jefferson wrote the immortal words that guide this nation. George Washington, who showed us presidents are not kings. Abraham Lincoln, who implored us to reject malice. Franklin Roosevelt, who inspired us to reject fear.

I revere this office, but I love my country more.

It’s been the honor of my life to serve as your president. But in the defense of democracy, which is at stake, I think it’s more important than any title.

I draw strength and I find joy in working for the American people, but this sacred task of perfecting our union is not about me. It’s about you, your families, your futures. It’s about we the people, and we can never forget that. And I never have.

I’ve made it clear that I believe America is at an inflection point, one of those rare moments in history when the decisions we make now will determine our fate of our nation and the world for decades to come.

America is going to have to choose between moving forward or backward, between hope and hate, between unity and division. We have to decide, do we still believe in honesty, decency, respect, freedom, justice and democracy? In this moment, we can see those we disagree with not as enemies, but as fellow Americans. Can we do that? Does character in public life still matter?

I believe you know the answer to these questions because I know you, the American people, and I know this, we are a great nation because we are a good people.

When you elected me to this office, I promised to always level with you, to tell you the truth. And the truth, the sacred cause of this country, is larger than any one of us, and those of us who cherish that cause cherish it so much, a cause of American democracy itself must unite to protect it.

You know, in recent weeks it’s become clear to me that I needed to unite my party in this critical endeavor. I believe my record as president, my leadership in the world, my vision for America’s future all merited a second term, but nothing, nothing can come in the way of saving our democracy, and that includes personal ambition.

So I’ve decided the best way forward is to pass the torch to a new generation. That’s the best way to unite our nation. I know there is a time and a place for long years of experience in public life, but there’s also a time and a place for new voices, fresh voices, yes, younger voices, and that time and place is now.

What to know about the 2024 Election

• Democracy: American democracy has overcome big stress tests since 2020. More challenges lie ahead in 2024.
• AP’s Role: The Associated Press is the most trusted source of information on election night, with a history of accuracy dating to 1848. Learn more.
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Over the next six months, I’ll be focused on doing my job as president. That means I’ll continue to lower costs for hard-working families, grow our economy. I’ll keep defending our personal freedoms and our civil rights, from the right to vote to the right to choose. I’ll keep calling out hate and extremism, make it clear there is no place, no place in America for political violence or any violence ever, period. I’m going to keep speaking out to protect our kids from gun violence, our planet from climate crisis, is the existential threat.

And I will keep fighting for my for my cancer moonshot, so we can end cancer as we know it because we can do it. And I’m going to call for Supreme Court reform because this is critical to our democracy, Supreme Court reform. You know, I will keep working to ensure America remains strong and secure and the leader of the free world.

I’m the first president in this century to report to the American people that the United States is not at war anywhere in the world. We’ll keep rallying a coalition of proud nations to stop Putin from taking over Ukraine and doing more damage. We’ll keep NATO stronger, and I’ll make it more powerful and more united than at any time in all of our history. I’ll keep doing the same for allies in the Pacific.

You know, when I came to office, the conventional wisdom was that China would inevitably surpass the United States. That’s not the case anymore. And I’m going to keep working to end the war in Gaza, bring home all the hostages and bring peace and security to the Middle East and end this war.

We’re also working around the clock to bring home Americans being unjustly detained all around the world. You know, we’ve come so far since my inauguration. On that day, I told you as I stood in that winter — we stood in a winter of peril and a winter of possibilities, peril and possibilities. We were in the grip of the worst pandemic in the century, the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, the worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War, but we came together as Americans, and we got through it. We emerged stronger, more prosperous and more secure.

Today, we have the strongest economy in the world, creating nearly 16 million new jobs — a record. Wages are up, inflation continues to come down, the racial wealth gap is the lowest it’s been in 20 years. We’re literally rebuilding our entire nation, urban, suburban, rural and tribal communities. Manufacturing has come back to America.

We’re leading the world again in chips and science and innovation. We finally beat Big Pharma after all these years, to lower the cost of prescription drugs for seniors, and I’m going to keep fighting to make sure we lower the cost for everyone, not just seniors.

More people have health care today in America than ever before. And I signed one of the most significant laws helping millions of veterans and their families who were exposed to toxic materials. You know, the most significant climate law ever, ever in the history of the world, the first major gun safety law in 30 years. And today, violent crime rate is at a 50-year low.

We’re also securing our border. Border crossings are lower today than when the previous administration left office. And I’ve kept my commitment to appoint the first Black woman to the Supreme Court of the United States of America. I also kept my commitment to have an administration that looks like America and be a president for all Americans.

That’s what I’ve done. I ran for president four years ago because I believed, and still do, that the soul of America was at stake. The very nature of who we are was at stake and that’s still the case. America is an idea, an idea stronger than any army, bigger than any ocean, more powerful than any dictator or tyrant.

It’s the most powerful idea in the history of the world. That idea is that we hold these truths to be self-evident. We’re all created equal, endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights, life, liberty, pursuit of happiness. We’ve never fully lived up to it, to this sacred idea, but we’ve never walked away from it either and I do not believe the American people will walk away from it now.

In just a few months, the American people will choose the course of America’s future. I made my choice. I made my views known. I would like to thank our great Vice President Kamala Harris. She’s experienced, she’s tough, she’s capable. She’s been an incredible partner to me and a leader for our country. Now the choice is up to you, the American people.

When you make that choice, remember the words of Benjamin Franklin. It’s hanging on my wall here in the Oval Office, alongside the bust of Dr. King and Rosa Parks and Cesar Chavez. When Ben Franklin was asked as he emerged from the convention going on, whether the founders have given America a monarchy or republic, Franklin’s response was “a republic, if you can keep it.” A republic if you can keep it. Whether we keep our republic is now in your hands.

My fellow Americans, it’s been the privilege of my life to serve this nation for over 50 years. Nowhere else on earth could a kid with a stutter from modest beginnings in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and Claymont, Delaware, one day sit behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office as President of the United States, but here I am. That’s what’s so special about America.

We are a nation of promise and possibilities, of dreamers and doers, of ordinary Americans doing extraordinary things. I’ve given my heart and my soul to our nation, like so many others. I’ve been blessed a million times in return with the love and support of the American people. I hope you have some idea how grateful I am to all of you.

The great thing about America is here kings and dictators do not rule, the people do. History is in your hands. The power is in your hands. The idea of America lies in your hands. We just have to keep faith, keep the faith and remember who we are. We’re the United States of America and there’s simply nothing, nothing beyond our capacity when we do it together.

So let’s act together, preserve our democracy. God bless you all and may God protect our troops. Thank you.

This Crew Is Totally Beatable

Democrats just need to believe they can do it.

A t the climax of the Republican National Convention last night, former President Donald Trump’s nomination-acceptance speech was a disheveled mess, endless and boring. He spoke for 93 minutes, the longest such speech on record. The runner-up was another Trump speech, in 2016, but that earlier effort had a certain sinister energy to it. This one limped from dull to duller.

Somebody seems to have instructed Trump that he was supposed to have been spiritually transformed by the attempt on his life, so he delivered the opening segment of his address in a dreary monotone, the Trump version of pious solemnity. After that prologue, the speech meandered along bizarre byways to pointless destinations. A few minutes before midnight eastern time, Trump pronounced a heavy “to conclude”—and then kept going for another nine minutes. Perhaps it was the disorienting aftereffect of shock, perhaps the numbing side effect of painkillers.

Whatever the explanation, Trump demonstrated in Milwaukee that President Joe Biden is not the only national politician diminished by the years. Trump too is dwindling into himself, even more isolated from such facts about the external world as elapsed time and audience impatience.

Read: The new Trump is always the old Trump

Formless and digressive as it was, the speech did have one major theme—a theme that underscores why and how the Democrats should be winning this race.

Trump stood on the podium in Milwaukee to sell nostalgia for his term in office. In fact, the Trump presidency ended in disaster, by many measures the worst fourth year of a presidency since Herbert Hoover’s in 1932: pandemic, mass death, economic collapse, rioting, and a surge in violent crime. By contrast, Biden’s presidency is delivering the best fourth year since … whose? Bill Clinton’s in 1996? Ronald Reagan’s in 1984? Calvin Coolidge’s in 1924?

Unemployment has reached the lowest level in more than half a century. The post-pandemic inflation has stopped and gone into reverse. The stock market has soared to record highs. Social indicators too are improving from the chaos left behind by Trump. In each year of the Trump presidency—not just in pandemic 2020, but for each of the three years before that—the rate of marriages and childbirths in the United States dropped. Under Biden, marriages and childbirths are rising again. Drug-overdose deaths are decreasing. The Trump-era violent-crime wave is receding at last.

The contrast could not be starker. Yet, if the polls are correct, it’s not helping Biden.

The Trump theory of his presidency is that Trump deserves credit for the good times of 2017, 2018, and 2019 and no discredit for the crisis of 2020. But both halves of that are backwards. The economy started growing fast in 2014, so Trump arrived in office just in time to claim credit for work that had been done by his predecessors. Managing crises is what Americans hire presidents to do, but Trump’s crisis management was almost uniquely bad. He responded to the pandemic with a blend of denial, callousness, and quackery; then he responded to 2020’s nationwide spasm of riots and the crime spike that occurred on his watch by casting blame upon others.

One of Trump’s skills is that he is a superb marketer of terrible products. Anybody can promote a great steak or an elegant hotel, but Trump’s a genius at touting bad steaks and tacky resorts as if they were actually quality items. He’s doing the same with his record as president. He wants accolades for the strong economy in place when he arrived, while he effaces the memory of the wreck he bequeathed.

The truth is that Trump’s record as president was the same as his record as a businessman: rich until the inheritance ran out.

W hy can’t Democrats make more effective use of the catastrophe left behind by the Trump presidency? Two reasons: one incidental, the other arising from defects in the party’s values and organization.

Here’s the incidental reason: The job of defining what a presidency is all about—in other words, what it wants to do and what it has accomplished—is inescapably the president’s and his alone. If he cannot do that, he concedes the game before it has started. Trump was an unfathomably lazy president. He idled away the equivalent of almost a full year of his presidency on golf courses. When not golfing, he wasted hours upon hours watching—and complaining about—cable news. But however little time he committed to work, one task he did not shirk: demanding and getting credit for good news on his watch.

Come a strong jobs report or a new stock-market record and Trump would boast and brag and ballyhoo. Nothing positive went unadvertised by a president who understood mass media better than the mass media understood themselves.

That has not been Biden’s way. He has seldom succeeded in directing the nation’s attention where he wanted to go. Frequently, he did not try to do so. He worked more than Trump, but somehow mattered less. Jobs and wages might go up; voter opinions about the economy went down. By last summer, real wages were rising faster than at any time under Trump. Yet Americans continued to express negative assessments of the economy deep into 2024. The Biden presidency has too often disappeared into that gap between perception and reality, a gap that a different president might have closed.

Compare two election-year State of the Union addresses: Clinton’s in 1996 and Biden’s in 2024. Clinton began his economic report within the very first minute of his speech:

The state of the Union is strong. Our economy is the healthiest it has been in three decades. We have the lowest combined rates of unemployment and inflation in 27 years. We have created nearly 8 million new jobs, over a million of them in basic industries, like construction and automobiles. America is selling more cars than Japan for the first time since the 1970s. And for three years in a row, we have had a record number of new businesses started in our country.

Biden also had good news to tell:

I inherited an economy that was on the brink. Now our economy is the envy of the world! Fifteen million new jobs in just three years—that’s a record! Unemployment at 50-year lows. A record 16 million Americans are starting small businesses and each one is an act of hope. With historic job growth and small business growth for Black, Hispanic, and Asian Americans. Eight hundred thousand new manufacturing jobs in America and counting. More people have health insurance today than ever before.

But Biden took a quarter of an hour to get to that news.

This Clinton-Biden disparity reveals something bigger than a difference in presidential style. The Democratic Party has profoundly changed since the 1990s. Today, tremendous power within the party has been amassed by groups and factions that speak for grievances. Good news is contrary to their principles and their purpose. Nobody can be happy if anybody is unhappy. They seem to believe that the way to reelect an administration is to detail all the things still wrong after four years of holding office. Here’s the advice Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut was offering Biden on the eve of his disastrous first debate with Donald Trump: “You should spend 80 percent of the time telling the story of how the drug companies screwed people, and 20 percent of the time explaining the solution. We do the opposite.”

Last year, The Washington Post ’s Paul Waldman remarked upon the Biden administration’s “fear of being seen as out of touch—or their fear of being scolded by participants in an elite debate that is invisible to most of the electorate.” That latter observation was exactly correct. Above all else, the Biden administration feared scolding by progressive interest groups. Those groups gain clout within the Democratic universe by accusing and disparaging. They imagine that the same techniques might work for an incumbent Democratic president with a record to defend, seeking to persuade swing voters. They don’t, and they won’t.

T he Republican National Convention cast a bright light on the party of Trump’s weaknesses: its extremism, its cultishness, its lack of welcome to the majority of Americans. The central idea implicit in the vice-presidential nominee’s speech was the superior Americanness of those with seven generations of ancestors buried in U.S. ground over those whose ancestors are buried in other places. The central idea in the presidential nominee’s speech was “me, me, me, me, me” for more than an hour and a half.

This crew is as beatable as any reactionary minority faction ever was beatable.

Read: The Democrats aren’t even trying

Democrats seem to be convinced by the hope that the way to inflict the beating is to change leadership. But the biggest defect of the present Democratic leadership was imposed by the Democratic followership: the reluctance to accept the fact that four years of non-Trump leadership have accomplished an enormous amount that is worth defending.

With a predator’s cunning, Trump has always understood that the first step to winning the confidence of others is to project confidence in oneself. Trump has used that understanding for his own crooked and criminal purposes. But the same understanding can be put to good use by better people.

Believe! Or lose.

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How to write a good speech

An advice sheet with information and tips for students to use when they write a speech. The key features of speech writing are covered and include having an inspiring opening and ending, using emotive language and including facts and figures. 

The resource also includes a planning grid template. 

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‘One of the Truly Awful and Self-Indulgent Performances of Our Time’: The Best and Worst Moments From Night 4 of the Convention

By New York Times Opinion

Did the night help Trump?

Welcome to Opinion’s commentary for Night 4 of the Republican National Convention. In this special feature, Times Opinion writers rate the evening on a scale of 0 to 10: 0 means the night was a disaster for Donald Trump; 10 means it could lead to a big polling bump. Here’s what our columnists and contributors thought of the event, which culminated in Trump’s acceptance speech.

Best Moment

Kristen Soltis Anderson, contributing Opinion writer Donald Trump gave a compelling and moving description of what it was like to be under fire and pledged to represent all of America, not just half of America. That may be easier said than done.

David Brooks, Times columnist The first 20 minutes of the Trump speech. If he’d done the story about the assassination attempt and then added 15 minutes of policy, he would be cruising toward victory. He could have plausibly argued that he is a changed man.

Jane Coaston, contributing Opinion writer Hulk Hogan’s speech was his best performance since he beat Macho Man Randy Savage at WrestleMania V.

Matthew Continetti, fellow at the American Enterprise Institute Trump’s account of the attempt on his life was gripping. He displayed a vulnerability and humility that most people had never seen before. And when he kissed the fireman’s helmet of Corey Comperatore, the husband and father who was killed during last weekend’s shooting, Trump created yet another indelible image. It won’t be soon forgotten.

David French, Times columnist Trump’s tribute to Comperatore was touching and appropriate. Placing his uniform on the stage was a powerful visual reminder of the loss.

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KS3 Speech Writing: Arming Teachers

Subject: English

Age range: 11-14

Resource type: Other

Last updated

4 March 2019

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A lesson that follows on from this introduction to speech writing for KS3:

https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/an-introduction-to-speech-writing-for-ks3-12049010

This is a speech-writing lesson based on the issue of arming teachers, similar to the US. It includes:

• Starter - learners examine four related images and say how they are similar and different
• A keywords match-up task with extension
• A link to a relevant article which serves as useful research/pre-reading
• A summary of the main arguments and some key statistics about gun crime in the US versus the UK
• Sample GCSE question (AQA-style)
• Writing time
• Peer assessment and review

This lesson is aimed at lower-middle ability learners and should take about two hours.

If you like this lesson, please consider other lessons in the KS3 speech writing series, as and when they are published. For example:

https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/ks3-speech-writing-the-plastics-debate-12058293

UPDATE: Corrections made to Teacher/Pupil Keywords sheets.

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An incredibly well planned lesson with lots of scope for progression on such a challenging topic! Thank you for sharing this! It's an absolute bargain!!

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4 takeaways from President Biden’s Oval Office address

Domenico Montanaro

President Biden speaks during an address to the nation about his decision to not seek reelection in the Oval Office at the White House on Wednesday. Evan Vucci/Pool/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

For the latest on race for president, head to NPR's Election 2024 page.

It’s not often that a politician takes a step back.

They are often their own biggest champions. But in rare cases, when the writing is on the wall, because of age, health — or politics, they do.

In an address to the nation from the Oval Office Wednesday night, President Biden said he will serve out his term as president, noting there are still things he wants to accomplish. But he explained that he is not seeking reelection, in part, because he wants to “pass the torch to a new generation.”

Here are four takeaways from what Biden had to say:

1. Biden tried to send the message that no one person is bigger than the country — and that what America stands for is at stake.

“Nothing can come in the way of saving our democracy,” Biden said. “That includes personal ambition.”

It was a remarkable statement for Biden, 81, who has held public office for more than half a century and ran for president multiple times — unsuccessfully until Donald Trump came along — and was ushered into office at 78 years old, the oldest person ever to be elected president.

Biden's brand was overcoming obstacles. But this one, he couldn't beat

Biden invoked past presidents — Abraham Lincoln, he said, urged Americans to “reject malice;” Franklin Delano Roosevelt implored the country to “reject fear.” He cited George Washington, who, by stepping aside after two terms despite his popularity, “showed us presidents are not kings.”

“I revere this office,” Biden said, “but I love my country more. It's been the honor of my life to serve as your president, but in the defense of democracy, which is at stake, I think it's more important than any title.”

In other words, Vice President Harris gives those who see former President Trump as an existential threat to that democracy the best chance to win because of Biden’s diminished capabilities to prosecute the case against him.

It's a case that Biden sees as necessary for someone to make effectively, considering Trump's unwillingness to accept the results of the 2020 election and his refusal to agree to accept the results of the upcoming election.

6 political takeaways from Biden's decision to step aside

In Washington’s farewell address on Sept. 19, 1796, he also warned that “cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.”

“The great thing about America is,” Biden said, “here, kings and dictators do not rule; the people do.”

Biden and others see that foundational American principle as lost on someone like Trump, who, when he visited Mount Vernon, Washington’s estate in Virginia, in 2019 with French President Emmanuel Macron, said of the nation’s first president, per Politico :

“If he was smart, he would’ve put his name on it. You’ve got to put your name on stuff or no one remembers you.”

2. Biden desperately wants to be seen as a uniter, but that’s been a struggle for him as president — and maybe one of his biggest personal disappointments.

President Joe Biden pauses before he addresses the nation from the Oval Office of the White House in Washington on Wednesday about his decision to drop his Democratic presidential reelection bid. Evan Vucci/Pool/via AP hide caption

The president cited the need for unity among Americans multiple times:

“America is going to have to choose between moving forward or backward, between hope and hate, between unity and division.” “In this moment, we can see those we disagree with not as enemies, but as fellow Americans.” “The sacred cause of this country is larger than any one of us, and those of us who cherish that cause … a cause of American democracy itself, [we] must unite to protect it.” “So I've decided the best way forward is to pass the torch to a new generation. That's the best way to unite our nation.” “Let's act together, preserve our democracy.”

The idea of uniting the country is something Biden ran on in 2020. But it hasn’t worked out that way. He’s been sharply criticized by the right and views of him — in this hyperpolarized environment where people get their information largely from sources that reinforce their previously held beliefs — are as partisan as any president before him, including Trump.

Just 43% said they had a favorable view of Biden, according to an NPR/PBS News/Marist poll taken before the debate between him and Trump. That included just 38% of independents and only 10% of Republicans.

3. This is the start of a review of Biden’s legacy — and that views of it may take a long time to set in.

Biden defended his legacy and laid out what he believes he’s accomplished and what he still hopes to do.

“I believe my record as president, my leadership in the world, my vision for America's future, all merited a second term,” he said, “but nothing, nothing can come in the way of saving our democracy. That includes personal ambition.”

Poll: Presidential race hits a reset with Harris vs. Trump

The latest NPR poll , taken this week after Biden said he would not continue to run for reelection, tested what people think of his presidency. It showed most, right now, are unimpressed.

Despite the record of legislative accomplishments Biden cited, only slightly more than a quarter of respondents said he would be remembered as an above average president or one of the best presidents in U.S. history. Half said he would be remembered as below average or one of the worst.

Those views can change with time, especially when a president is no longer in the political arena. President Obama’s favorability, for example, has improved since leaving office and views of his signature legislative achievement, the Affordable Care Act, have hit record highs.

A 2022 survey of historians found Biden rated as the 19th best president of the 46 that have served. Trump was in the bottom five at No. 43. But, at this point, Americans overall, feel differently.

4. After seeing Harris for a few days, the contrast with Biden is clear.

Vice President Harris speaks to supporters during a campaign rally at West Allis Central High School on Tuesday in West Allis, Wis. Jim Vondruska/Getty Images hide caption

Biden could have made the determination years ago, after saying he would be a “transitional” president during the 2020 election, that he would not run for reelection.

But the realities of his personal limitations after his dismal debate performance last month, and how his political support had cratered in swing states led to this moment.

Biden had a problem with young voters. Can Harris overcome it?

Trump tries out attack lines on Kamala Harris as her campaign heats up

For years now, Democrats have been holding their breath with every public appearance he made. They crossed their fingers that he would acquit himself at least decently well, but they knew one bad speech, interview or… debate… could sink his — and their party’s — chances to hold onto the White House.

After watching Harris' first couple of days of campaigning, from her first speech before staffers to her first official campaign rally in Wisconsin, Democrats have been breathing a bit easier.

She has spoken clearly and coherently, and there has been energy from the grassroots. Whether that lasts or if it resonates with swing voters is still to be decided.

Biden didn’t explicitly lay out Wednesday night why he stepped aside, but watching what was an, at times, halting address, the contrast was like night and day.

It was very much a moment in history with a president, who appeared in many ways, to be delivering something of his own farewell. He was recognizing he cannot be as effective a campaigner as he would have liked, so he is taking a step back from the public eye, handing over the reins of the campaign to his vice president for the next 103 critical days in American democracy.

• election 2024

Read President Joe Biden's full statement as he drops out of 2024 presidential race

President Joe Biden announced that he is leaving the presidential race Sunday , endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris for the Democratic nomination.

The decision came at the crescendo of calls for the President to bow out of the race after a poor debate performance and questions about his age that have rode his coattails throughout his presidency.

"I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term," Biden said in the statement.

The announcement makes Biden the first incumbent not to seek reelection since Lyndon B. Johnson in 1968. 

Read Biden's statement on dropping out in full:

Biden drops out: As President Joe Biden steps aside, would America be ready for President Kamala Harris?

Read Joe Biden's statement dropping out

"My Fellow Americans, Over the past three and a half years, we have made great progress as a Nation.

Today, America has the strongest economy in the world. We've made historic investments in rebuilding our Nation, in lowering prescription drug costs for seniors, and in expanding affordable health care to a record number of Americans. We’ve provided critically needed care to a million veterans exposed to toxic substances. Passed the first gun safety law in 30 years. Appointed the first African American woman to the Supreme Court. And passed the most significant climate legislation in the history of the world. America has never been better positioned to lead than we are today.

I know none of this could have been done without you, the American people. Together, we overcame a once in a century pandemic and the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. We've protected and preserved our Democracy. And we've revitalized and strengthened our alliances around the world.

It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your President. And while it has been my intention to seek reelection, I believe it is in the best interest 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.

I will speak to the Nation later this week in more detail about my decision.

For now, let me express my deepest gratitude to all those who have worked so hard to see me reelected. I want to thank Vice President Kamala Haris for being an extraordinary partner in all this work. And let me express my heartfelt appreciation to the American people for the faith and trust you have placed in me.

I believe today what I always have: that there is nothing America can't do — when we do it together. We just have to remember we are the United States of America."