Two-Hour Special From FRONTLINE’s Acclaimed Political Team Examines Biden’s Five Decades in U.S. Politics & His Dramatic Decision to Drop His 2024 Reelection Bid

Biden’s Decision

Premieres Tue., August 6, 2024
7/6c: pbs.org/frontline, PBS App
9/8c: PBS stations (check local listings), YouTube
& the PBS Documentaries Prime Video Channel
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President Joe Biden’s decision to end his bid for a second term less than four months before the 2024 election was the latest dramatic and difficult moment in what has been a lifetime of them.

In the new documentary Biden’s Decision, FRONTLINE chronicles the 81-year-old’s life and his five decades in U.S. politics — the challenges, controversies, triumphs and tragedies; Biden’s rise to the presidency; and the personal and political forces that shaped him and led to his fateful decision to step aside instead of trying to mount one more comeback.

“There’s a lot of fights that you can have in politics,” Washington Post journalist Toluse Olorunnipa says in the film. “But you can never win the fight against time.”

From veteran chronicler of U.S. politics Michael Kirk, who with his team has made five installments of FRONTLINE’s election-year special The Choice and more than 25 documentaries about the Biden, Trump and Obama eras, Biden’s Decision premieres Tuesday, August 6, 2024.

The documentary draws on revealing new interviews with those who know Biden well — including former chief of staff Ron Klain, former press secretary Jen Psaki, and former campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon — as well as prior FRONTLINE interviews conducted throughout Biden’s decades in U.S. politics with his wife, Jill Biden; his sister and former campaign manager, Valerie Biden Owens; his Secretary of State Antony Blinken; and other influential figures.

From Biden’s childhood battle with stuttering and then the death of his wife and young child, through his decades as a U.S. senator, his failed presidential bids, his eight years as vice president in the Obama administration, and then finally taking office as president himself in a time of cascading national crises, Biden was always one to pick himself back up after challenging moments, those who know him told FRONTLINE.

“You cannot understand Joe Biden without understanding everything that came before, which is an entire lifetime spent proving to people that he can do the things that they believe he cannot,” New Yorker journalist and Biden biographer Evan Osnos says in the film.

It’s a modus operandi that dates back to Biden’s early years: “Failure would happen in everyone’s life, but giving up was unforgivable. My dad would say, ‘It’s not how often you get knocked down, it’s how quickly you get back up,’” Valerie Biden Owens, who managed Biden’s seven senatorial campaigns, says in the film.

The film explores the fraught days after Biden gave a halting debate performance against former President Donald Trump — a man he was determined to beat a second time in November — and examines why he made the choice to stand down and, in his words, “pass the torch to a new generation.”

“He was not going to be getting younger,” Olorunnipa of the Washington Post says in the film. “His skills were not going to magically return. He made this decision and he ultimately came to understand that he was going to be a one-term president.”

A probing look at Biden’s life and legacy, Biden’s Decision will be available to watch in full at pbs.org/frontline and in the PBS App starting August 6, 2024, at 7/6c. It will premiere on PBS stations (check local listings) and on FRONTLINE’s YouTube channel at 9/8c and will also be available on the PBS Documentaries Prime Video Channel. The documentary is distributed internationally by PBS International. Subscribe to FRONTLINE’s newsletter to get updates on events, podcast episodes and more related to Biden’s Decision.

Credits
Biden’s Decision is a FRONTLINE Production with Kirk Documentary Group, Ltd. The director is Michael Kirk. The producers are Michael Kirk, Mike Wiser, Vanessa Fica and Philip Bennett. The writers are Michael Kirk and Mike Wiser. The reporters are Vanessa Fica and Brooke Nelson Alexander. The editor-in-chief and executive producer of FRONTLINE is Raney Aronson-Rath.

About FRONTLINE
FRONTLINE, U.S. television’s longest running investigative documentary series, explores the issues of our times through powerful storytelling. FRONTLINE has won an Academy Award® as well as every major journalism and broadcasting award, including 106 Emmy Awards and 34 Peabody Awards. Visit pbs.org/frontline and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube to learn more. FRONTLINE is produced at GBH in Boston and is broadcast nationwide on PBS. Funding for FRONTLINE is provided through the support of PBS viewers and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Additional support for FRONTLINE is provided by the Abrams Foundation, Park Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and the FRONTLINE Journalism Fund, with major support from Jon and Jo Ann Hagler on behalf of the Jon L. Hagler Foundation, and additional support from Koo and Patricia Yuen.

Press Contact: Anne Husted, Associate Director of Publicity, Communications and Awards | frontlinemedia@wgbh.org | 6173005312