Biden: ‘All-out war is possible’ in the Middle East

President Joe Biden warned Wednesday that “all-out war is possible” in the Middle East, acknowledging the limits of his own persistent diplomatic efforts at achieving a cease-fire deal.

“I’m using every bit of energy with my team” to get a cease-fire, he said in a live in-studio interview on ABC’s “The View.” “But I think there’s also the opportunity, still in play, to have a settlement that could fundamentally change the whole region.”

Those comments, notably more blunt than the president’s remarks Tuesday to the United Nations General Assembly, were sandwiched within what was mostly a friendly and lighthearted interview with the show’s six hosts focused on what he hopes to be his legacy.

A day after Biden himself spoke to other world leaders about his decision to give up his own reelection bid, he faced questions at the start of the interview about why he begrudgingly ended his campaign.

In response, he insisted that his relationship with former Speaker Nancy Pelosi is “fine” — and suggested he stepped aside in July of his own accord, not due to Pelosi’s pressure campaign.

And he downplayed the intra-party opposition to his candidacy that arose in the days and weeks after his disastrous June 27 debate performance.

“I never fully believed the assertions that somehow there was this overwhelming reluctance to my running again,” Biden said.

Increasingly focused on using his final months in office to define his own policy and political legacy, Biden asserted that his July 21 announcement that he would step aside and back Vice President Kamala Harris as the party’s presidential nominee was not a response to polling showing his path to victory against former President Donald Trump had closed.

“My polling was about — always within range of beating this guy,” he said.

POLITICO reported at the time that Biden and his closest aides in the 24 hours leading up to his announcement had reviewed his campaign’s own internal polling showing him trailing badly in key swing states and losing enough ground in reliably blue states like New Hampshire and New Mexico.

Instead, Biden suggested that those who called for him to exit the race did so out of self-interest. “There were some folks who’d like to see me step aside so they have a chance to move on,” he said. “I get that — that’s human nature.”

That assertion, however, is belied by the fact that most prominent Democrats with presidential ambitions never publicly abandoned him and quickly threw their support behind Harris after he stepped aside.

“But that wasn’t the reason I stepped down,” the president continued. “I stepped down because I started thinking about it. … It’s hard for me to even say how old I am … it’s like, ‘Holy God, that can’t be right.’”

Biden, who at times gripped the hands of Joy Behar and Ana Navarro, the hosts seated directly at his sides, explained that he learned early to fight for his values that “there’s so many things that are worth losing over.”

He said he’d like to be remembered for “being honest in what I’ve done, straight up,” and for his enduring optimism about what’s possible when leaders remember the personal element of politics and search for common ground.

“We can get so much done. We have to focus. We have to believe in ourselves again,” he said, praising Harris as a leader who will carry his mantle forward. “She believes in America. She believes in our capacity. She believes in what we can get done.”