Once again after the result of the US presidential election in early November, President Biden appeared “particularly regretful” for dropping out of the race and reportedly insisted that he could have beaten Trump if his own party had not pushed him out of the race.

Biden and surprisingly some of his aides have stressed to their entourage “in recent days” that the president should have stayed in the race and could have won a second term, The Washington Post reported Saturday, citing multiple unnamed sources briefed on those discussions.

Instead, the 82-year-old succumbed to pressure from Democratic Party elites to drop out of the race in July because of poor poll numbers his mental problems and his troubled performance in the June 27 debate, in which he gave incoherent answers and appeared to muddle his words several times.

Vice President Kamala Harris replaced Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket and was easily defeated by Trump, who will be sworn in for a second term in the White House on January 20.

“Aides say the president was careful not to blame Harris or her campaign,” the Post said in its report.

However, Biden all but admitted during an interview on CBS News Sunday Morning in August that former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi led Harris’ campaign because Democrats in the House and Senate were worried she would not be re-elected. And in September she came back, telling “The View” that she was confident she would beat Trump two months later.

Many Democrats, however, attribute Harris’s defeat to Biden’s insistence that she not quit early.

“Biden ran – in his first term – on the promise that he would be a transitional president, and in fact he would have a four-year term before handing the baton to another generation,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut) told the Washington Post. “I think his re-nomination has shattered that idea that he would defeat the Trumpism and set the stage for a new era.”

Meanwhile, some of his closest advisers, while not blaming Biden, concede that his old-school style of governing has not always fit with modern politics.

Biden in recent weeks has acknowledged some of the many gaffes he made in office, such as “screwing up” during the debate and being “stupid” for not taking credit by putting his name on the pandemic relief checks his administration sent out in 2021 – as Trump did as president in 2020.

And Biden and his aides have also admitted that the administration could have done a better job of lifting the morale of Americans during the pandemic.