Former President Joe Biden has recently re-emerged on the public stage, to the chagrin of many inside his own party, and in an interview with the BBC released this week, he offered insight into his exit from the 2024 race.

In what was the former president's first major interview since departing the Oval Office, Biden held forth on a host of issues, notably revealing his belief that suspending his re-election campaign and allowing then-Vice President Kamala Harris to top the Democratic Party ticket was the right thing to do, as the Washington Examiner reports.

Biden opines

During his sit-down with BBC Radio's Today program, the former president was pushed to answer questions about his decision to bow out of the 2024 contest at a relatively late date, leaving his party in a rush to recalibrate its campaign against Donald Trump.

“I think it was the right decision,” Biden insisted, adding, “It was just a difficult decision.”

Biden further opined that it was the success of his tenure in office that made it tough not to step aside, even though it had been his intention all along to serve in a transitional capacity before handing the mantle of party leadership to younger candidates.

“I meant what I said when I started that...I'm prepared to hand this to the next generation. But things moved so quickly that it made it difficult to walk away. It was a hard decision,” Biden asserted.

When pressed about the timing of his departure from the race, just four months from Election Day, and asked whether he should have dropped sooner, Biden said, “I don't think it would have mattered. We left at a time when we had a good candidate,” though Harris went on to defeat in all battleground states, also losing the popular vote to Trump.

Taking aim at Trump

As CBS News noted, in addition to discussing the 2024 election, Biden took the interview as an opportunity to blast the Trump administration, particularly his successor's foreign policy approach.

Biden labeled Trump's dealings with Russian President Vladimir Putin, in the context of the war with Ukraine, as “modern-day appeasement.”

“I just don't understand how people think that if we allow a dictator, a thug, to decide he's going to take significant portions of land that aren't his, and that's going to satisfy him. I don't quite understand,” Biden said.

Biden also lambasted Trump for his statements regarding a potential reclamation of the Panama Canal, a declared desire to acquire Greenland, and his suggestion that Canada become the 51^st state.

“What the hell's going on here? What president ever talks like that?” Biden wondered, adding, “That's not who we are. We're about freedom, democracy, opportunity, not about confiscation.”

White House responds

Without addressing the former president's remarks about his decision to abandon his re-election campaign, White House spokesperson Steven Cheung held little back in his assessment of the interview, saying, “Joe Biden is a complete disgrace to this country and the office he occupied. He has clearly lost all mental faculties and his handlers thought it'd be a good idea for him to do an interview and incoherently mumble his way through every answer.”

Cheung went on to say, “Sadly, this feels like abuse,” and given that Biden appears to be embarking on something of a publicity tour to help rehabilitate his image -- and some say his earning power -- the former president's cringeworthy post-White House public commentary may just be starting.