In a speech to Democrat Party members in Illinois, Mr Biden wiped away tears before calling Donald Trump a "loser" and urging people to get behind Kamala Harris ahead of this year's US election. The outgoing US president was seen wiping away tears as he walked out to deliver a speech on the opening night of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois, on Monday night. He had been introduced to the stage at the United Center by his daughter Ashley for what was billed as his swansong. It was followed by a four-minute-long ovation and chants of "thank you Joe" from those in the crowd. "America, I love you," he replied.

Joe Biden denied he is "angry" with Democrats who tried to remove him as their candidate ahead of this year's US election - as he said "democracy must be preserved" in an emotional farewell speech to his party's members.

In a nearly hour-long address, Mr Biden called Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump a "loser" and urged people to get behind Democratic candidate Kamala Harris ahead of this year's US election. His speech came less than a month after he dropped out of the race for the White House following months of speculation about his age and his fitness to serve another four years. Concerns increased among Democrats after a disastrous debate performance against Mr Trump in June and a series of high-profile gaffes. Senior Democrats, including former US President Barack Obama, expressed their concerns about him running, while former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Mr Biden's long-time friend and ally, urged him to step aside.

Addressing the moves within the party to have him replaced as the presidential candidate, Mr Biden said: "I love the job, but I love my country more

"All this talk about how I'm angry at all the people who said I should step down - that's not true.

"I love my country more and we need to preserve our democracy."

Chants of "we love Joe" filled the arena as he made the remarks.

Mr Biden also told those gathered that the US is at an "inflection point" and November's election will determine the fate of the nation and the world for "decades to come".

The US president has long presented Mr Trump as a threat to the country's democracy and said he believes the Republican candidate will not accept the result if he loses.

Mr Biden said: "Democracy has prevailed, democracy has delivered and now democracy must be preserved."

Directing criticism at Mr Trump, Mr Biden said: "Think of the message he sends around the world when he talks about America being a failing nation.

"He says we're losing. He's the loser. He's dead wrong."

The US president added: "Donald Trump says he will refuse to accept election results if he loses again. He' s promising a bloodbath - his words.

"We need you to beat Trump and elect Kamala and Tim president and vice president of the United States of America."

Mr Biden also ran through his achievements during his time in the Oval Office, telling the crowd that he had forged "the strongest economy in the entire world" in the wake of the COVID-19 global pandemic. In the final moments of his speech he said: "America, I gave my best to you."

The US president spent 52 years rising to the pinnacle of influence within his party before stepping aside for Ms Harris to run in this year's election.

As he began to wrap up his speech, Mr Biden took a moment to remind people why they should vote for current vice president Ms Harris in November this year.

He said: "Selecting Kamala was the very first decision I made when I became our nominee, and it's the best decision I made.

"She's tough, she's experienced and she has enormous integrity."

Ms Harris herself later made an unannounced appearance, drawing cheers from the crowd as she vowed to defeat Mr Trump in the election. "Let us fight for the ideals we hold dear and let us always remember, when we fight we win," she said in brief remarks. She also paid tribute to Mr Biden, thanking him for "historic leadership" and a "lifetime of service" to the nation.

While most Democrats celebrate their recent polling surge in Chicago this week, Joe Biden is in self-imposed exile. After delivering his speech at the Democratic National Convention on Monday night, the US President flew to Santa Barbara for a “vacation” with his family. In reality, he is still smarting from being forced to sacrifice a potential second term by Democratic grandees who for months claimed to be his loyal backers. A more charitable interpretation of Biden’s early convention departure would be that he wanted to make way for his vice president and successor Kamala Harris, who now only has two weeks before mail voting begins on 6 September.

Whatever the reason for his early departure, Biden’s task at the convention was unenviable: to deliver a speech with dignity after being turfed out by his own party. While he may hold a farewell address in January as Barack Obama did in 2017, this was his final chance to speak while people were still listening. The choice before him seemed simple: be magnanimous or damage his presidential legacy. If he hit the right notes, puffed Harris up, and didn’t mention how she became the nominee, then commentators would pretend to forget that he went begrudgingly. His legislative achievements in office would not be tarnished by an embittered end. He would be remembered as a man who put his party and country before his own career. In the liberal mind, he would become the archetypal antithesis of Donald Trump.

Which makes it sound like an easy decision. But such magnanimity is tough when Biden has been briefed against, mocked and betrayed. Even the tributes gushing from his fellow Democrats are riddled with condescension. Nancy Pelosi, the former speaker and preeminent party grandee, has said Biden should be on Mount Rushmore weeks after playing a crucial part in his defenestration. He had to endure the fact that all 20,000 delegates, journalists and legislators cheering in the United Centre stadium during his speech knew he was being dishonest, that in reality he wanted to stay on. This was an operation to save face of North Korean proportions.

Yet, Biden is the visual inverse of Kim Jong Un. He looked skeletal and frail behind the lectern. But his stumbled phrases are poignant now they don’t echo with the sound of Trump opening the door of the White House. Each scrambled sentence no longer hands the Republicans another percentage point in the polls. This was about Biden’s fumbles, not the campaign’s.

The president was introduced by his 43-year-old daughter Ashley and wife Jill. The more morbid in the crowd would have thought their speeches sounded like eulogies. “I see one of the most consequential leaders EVER in history,” Ashley exclaimed. When the president came on stage, the crowd descended into saccharine adoration. “Thank! You! Joe!” the crowd chanted. “We love Joe,” rang out for so long that it became overwrought and exaggerated. It seemed to come from guilt, not affection. “It’s so emotional,” Harris appeared to say from her place in the audience. Her husband Doug Emhoff wiped literal tears from his eyes.

Biden began his speech by recalling his inauguration two weeks after Trump supporters stormed the Capitol on 6 January 2021. He reeled off familiar lines about protecting democracy and governing for all Americans. His message was that he had ensured – by bringing manufacturing jobs back to America, building infrastructure and strengthening Nato –  that the US remained the best country in the world. It was a nationalistic speech replete with American exceptionalism and lines such as: “who can lead the world other than the United States of America?” He spoke with a fervour suggestive of his desire to define his legacy before others do. He slammed the lectern, raised his finger and called Trump a “loser” in that combative, borderline aggressive tone which Harris has expunged from the campaign.

This was a valedictory speech with a campaigning zeal which betrayed Joe Biden’s desire to stay. When he finished, the applause was prolonged and ecstatic. But it rang hollow. In 2024, his party could only love him once they knew he would soon be gone.

Democrats gathered in Chicago for the opening night of their convention as unified and as energized as the party has been since they nominated Barack Obama 16 years ago. Gone was a feeling that they were fighting simply to keep Donald Trump out of the White House, replaced by a feeling that they were fighting for something.

And yet, there was also a sense of nostalgia among the thousands of delegates, many of whom were elected with a pledge to back Joe Biden and up until last month thought they were coming here to do just that.

When Kamala Harris made a surprise appearance onstage after 9 p.m., the United Center erupted at the site of the party’s new savior, but she quickly acknowledged the man she replaced on the ticket.

“I want to kick us off by celebrating our incredible president, Joe Biden,” Harris said. “Joe, thank you for your historic leadership, for your lifetime of service to our nation, and for all you continue to do; we are forever grateful to you,” while the crowd, not for the first time on this night, chanted in response, “Thank you, Joe!”

“I was disappointed and shocked” when Biden stepped down, said Dan Farfaglia, a delegate from upstate New York, who was wearing a “Biden 46” jersey and a “Yes, we did” hat. “He had already gotten all the delegates that he needed to win the nomination.”

Amid all of the coconut-flavored good feelings was an unmistakable feeling among some in the audience that had this been Biden’s convention, the vibes would be just as strong, and Harris’s polling bump could have been his.

Among Harris campaign officials, who, until a month ago, were mostly Biden campaign officials, it remains an article of faith that had Biden stayed in the race, he would have eventually won. (Never mind the disastrous debate performance, his unsteady follow-ups, and the party cracking up over his candidacy.) Biden is, they like to point out, the only politician who has defeated Trump, and by November the Democratic base voters who were unenthused about the prospect of a president serving until he was 86 would have ultimately come home, if only to stave off the threat of a second Trump term.

“I absolutely think he would have won,” said J.B. Pritzker, the governor of Illinois and the de facto host of this convention. “I worked like heck to make sure he had the opportunity to do that, but I also honor the fact that he chose to sit this out.”

“Of course,” said Representative Tom Suozzi of New York when asked if Biden could have won. “There is no question that running on his record, and running on Trump’s record, he had a good chance to win.”

“Do you know Allan Lichtman?” asked Tom Daschle, the former Senate majority leader, referring to an American University history professor who achieved social-media notoriety earlier this year by publicizing a theory he developed in 1996 about what it takes to win the presidency. “He has predicted correctly every election, right? And the day before President Biden announced he would not be a candidate, he indicated that Biden was very likely to win. I think it is a matter of how certain you are. Allan Lichtman says we probably would have won, but I think we take some of the uncertainty off the table.”

When Biden finally came out to speak long after his scheduled time and after Americans on the East Coast at least had gone to bed, it provided one of the more electric moments of the night, as delegates chanted “We love Joe” for more than four minutes.

“Our best days are not behind us, they are before us,” Biden said in an energetic address in which he recounted his political and policy victories over the past four years. “Democracy had prevailed. Democracy has delivered. And now democracy must be preserved!”

“This Joe Biden,” one Democratic strategist said after the speech, “is beating Donald Trump by 15.”

Not everyone buys it.

“He didn’t stand a chance,” said Dean Phillips, the Minnesota congressman who launched a quixotic run for the nomination against Biden that was designed to be little more than a stand-in campaign for voters to express dissatisfaction with Biden’s age. “It’s not what I thought of his age, it’s what the American voters thought of his age, and they were saying what they thought loud and clear.”

With additional reporting by Ben Jacobs.