After the CNN presidential debate in Atlanta a little more than three weeks ago, the vibes in the spin room were off, like stumbling out of a bar at 6:00 AM into the blinding sunlight off.

Nobody was quite sure what they had just seen. Once, Democratic surrogates like California Governor Gavin Newsom did make their way to the floor, they threw their full support behind President Joe Biden, despite just watching his stumbling, halting, at times incomprehensible performance against as former President Donald Trump.

Have his back 100% firmly. Never turn my back. I don't know. That's a personal point of view. I do not know one Democrat that would do that. Why should voters be?

It turns out it would had way more than one. Dozens of Democrats in Congress and top donors came forward in the days and weeks after to say that Biden should step aside. But Biden continued to hold firm. He told ABC News it would take an act of divine intervention to get him out.

I convinced myself with two things. I'm the most qualified person to beat him, and I know how to get things done.

If you can be convinced that you cannot defeat Donald Trump, will you stand down?

It depends. If the Lord Almighty comes out and tells me that, I might do that.

Well, yesterday afternoon, whether it was the Lord Almighty or down-ballet swing state polling, Biden finally seemed to get the message.

Major major breaking news. President Joe Biden has just announced that he is dropping out of the 2024 presidential race in a stunning letter that was just released moments ago by his campaign on X, formerly known- Less than an hour later, he had endorsed his vice President, Kamala Harris, to take his place.

And this presidential campaign was tossed on its head again in a way we've never quite seen before. So let's all take a deep breath and figure out where we go from here. My guest today is CNN senior reporter, Edward Isaac Delvier. He's going to explain how we arrived at this extraordinary moment and how the vice President is preparing to step into the spotlight.

From CNN, this is One Thing. I'm David Reind.

I'm recording. Hang on a second. Elizabeth Warren is going to call me. Do you want to do this in like half an hour? Sorry.

No problem.

Sorry. It's for Elizabeth Warren that I'm booting you. Not for anyone smaller than that.

Understood. All right, Isaac, you're back. Are you allowed to tell me at all what Elizabeth Warren told you?

She told me, first of all, how excited she is to back Harris. She kept calling her a fighter. But what I was talking to her about was something that I will be spelling out more reporting about, which is how Harris's plan is taking shape to make the argument against Trump. That was something that she was preparing to do even before the debate, and not because she was scheming, but because she always was going to make this not about Trump's running mate, but about Trump and about really falling back on her old argument as a prosecutor and prosecuting the case against That's what she's going to be doing now. And Lauren was very centered on why that is something that she thinks will be powerful and will be a way for Harris and Democrats overall to have a good November.

Well, let's step back a bit because this is not how anybody thought they'd be spending their Sunday here talking about this. But you've been reporting on the mood inside the Biden campaign ever since the debate last month. Just the other day, you wrote a piece called Inside the doom loop of Joe Biden's Campaign. The idea being that these calls for him to step aside would just continue, and Biden might continue to stick it out to November amid all this chaos. So what changed?

Well, what changed was that it became too much, that there was definitely for President Biden and people close to him. And by the way, not just people close to him, but supporters around the country a feeling of, let's get through this, we can get through this, and let's start fighting Donald Trump rather than fighting each other. But as statement after statement and story after story came out and all the leaks and all of it, it just created what one person, a member of Congress, called me to say it was a doom loop. The meaning of that in that person's mind, the other people who talked about it, is that it was just making it harder and harder to get out of it. Joe Biden took a week after the debate, really, where he wasn't seen that much and then started to come out a little bit and didn't ever really get to do all that much stuff and was starting to pick up the campaigning more and then got COVID and it was sidelined again for a week. It just was making it seem to people that whatever his own feelings about whether he could win were, and there were certainly reasons and data to support that, they were just not going to be able to overcome the turn against him that was getting more intense by the day.

Because this is a question I've seen on social media here, is he going to resign the presidency or is this just a campaign decision? back. With all that, she has been continuing to prepare for what the campaign would be with an understanding from the beginning that she was going to be running against Donald Trump, even if she were the running mate and Trump had a running mate. And you saw that in her reaction to JD Vans being picked for the ticket.So some of you may have heard Donald Trump's running mate deliver remarks at the Republican National Convention. He talked about his life story about growing up in Southwest Ohio, and it was compelling. It's a Audio. We get support from Haley Thomas, Alex Manisari, Robert Mather's, John Dianora, Lanie Steinhart, James Andrés, Nicole Pessereau, and Lisa Namarau. Special thanks to Wendy Brundage and Katie Hinman. For the very, very latest on all the twists and turns of this story, you can head over to cnen. Com or check out the CNN Five Things podcast. We'll be back on Wednesday with another episode. I'll talk to you then.

back. With all that, she has been continuing to prepare for what the campaign would be with an understanding from the beginning that she was going to be running against Donald Trump, even if she were the running mate and Trump had a running mate. And you saw that in her reaction to JD Vans being picked for the ticket.

So some of you may have heard Donald Trump's running mate deliver remarks at the Republican National Convention. He talked about his life story about growing up in Southwest Ohio, and it was compelling. It's a Audio. We get support from Haley Thomas, Alex Manisari, Robert Mather's, John Dianora, Lanie Steinhart, James Andrés, Nicole Pessereau, and Lisa Namarau. Special thanks to Wendy Brundage and Katie Hinman. For the very, very latest on all the twists and turns of this story, you can head over to cnen. Com or check out the CNN Five Things podcast. We'll be back on Wednesday with another episode. I'll talk to you then.

Audio. We get support from Haley Thomas, Alex Manisari, Robert Mather's, John Dianora, Lanie Steinhart, James Andrés, Nicole Pessereau, and Lisa Namarau. Special thanks to Wendy Brundage and Katie Hinman. For the very, very latest on all the twists and turns of this story, you can head over to cnen. Com or check out the CNN Five Things podcast. We'll be back on Wednesday with another episode. I'll talk to you then.