Aloha, shubh sandhya, and welcome back to The Best & The Brightest: Impolitic—coming at you tonight from Gotham City as the political world (and, really, the world writ large) grapples with the announcement by Joseph Robinette Biden Jr., the 46th president of the United States, that he will “stand down” from his reelection bid and “focus solely on my fulfilling my duties as president for the remainder of my term.”

Along with my colleagues here at Puck, I’ll have more to say in the days ahead about Biden’s decision to bow out, his minutes-later endorsement of Kamala Harris to succeed him at the top of the Democratic ticket, and what comes next in the presidential campaign. (My Puck partner Tara Palmeri spoke with Steve Schmidt in the minutes after Biden’s announcement about the coming battle royale; you can read their conversation here.) But for now, four top-of-mind thoughts about what’s happened, why it’s happened, and what it means.