Outgoing President Joe Biden said he’s ‘not going anywhere’ one day prior to his departure from the White House – despite being forced out of the race by Democrats due to concerns about his cognitive abilities. The 82-year-old commander-in-chief made the comments as he spoke at the Royal Missionary Baptist Church in Charleston, South Carolina to commemorate Martin Luther King Jr. Day one day early.

During his speech, Biden commended himself for issuing more commutations and individual pardons than ‘any other president in American history.’ He also claimed he tried to ‘end the federal death penalty’ by reducing many of the Death Row inmates’ sentences to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Biden said those whose sentences he commuted were ‘serving disproportionately hard, long and harsh sentences for non-violent drug offenses,’ adding that he showed ‘mercy’ for those who did their time or served a significant amount of time and ‘have shown significant remorse and rehabilitation,’ according to Fox News.

‘These decisions are difficult,’ the president told the congregation. ‘Some have never been done before, but in my experience with my conscience, I believe taking together justice and mercy requires [us] as a nation to bear witness, to see people’s pain, not to look away and do the work, to move pain to purpose, to show we can get a person, a nation, to a day of redemption. ‘We know the struggle to redeem the soul of this nation is difficult and ongoing,’ Biden continued. ‘This is the shore between peril and possibility. But faith, faith teaches us the America of our dreams is always closer than we think. That’s the faith we must hold on to for the Saturdays to come. We must hold on [to] hope. We must stay engaged. [We] must always keep the faith in a better day to come.’

It was then that Biden made his promise. ‘I’m not going anywhere,’ he said. ‘I’m not kidding. The people in South Carolina, thank you for keeping the faith,’ the president concluded. ‘It’s been the honor of my life to serve as your president. As I close out this journey with you, I’m just as passionate about our work as I was as a 29-year-old kid when I got elected,’ he said, arguing: ‘I’m in no ways tired.’

But the outgoing president had lost the support of his Democratic peers following a disastrous debate performance against President-elect Donald Trump over the summer. Former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi even told Biden in the aftermath that she was prepared to go public with her concerns that he could not defeat Trump in a presidential election.

The president later admitted that Pelosi’s concerns about Biden’s potential effects on Democratic campaigns pushed him to drop out. ‘A number of my Democratic colleagues in the House and Senate thought that I was going to hurt them in the races,’ Biden told CBS News Sunday Morning host Robert Costa.

‘And I was concerned if I stayed in the race, that would be the topic — you’d be interviewing me about why did Nancy Pelosi say [something] … and I thought it’d be a real distraction,’ he said. Biden is now set to vacate the Oval Office on Monday, as Trump is sworn in.

Want more stories like this from the Daily Mail? Hit the follow button above for more of the news you need.