“America, I love you!” said Biden, 81, dabbing his eyes after an introduction from his daughter, Ashley Biden.

The crowd — chanting, “Thank you, Joe!” — continued to applaud the outgoing president for several minutes before he kicked off his address.

“Thank you, Kamala, too,” Biden said when the supportive heckling persisted throughout his 51-minute speech, noting his endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris as his replacement nominee.

“I’ve got five months left of my presidency and I have a lot to do. I intend to get it done,” Biden insisted — as he prepared to depart later in the evening for a vacation in Santa Ynez, Calif., following weeks of notably few public events since he dropped his bid for a second term on July 21.

“It’s been the honor of my lifetime to serve as your president. And I love the job, but I love my country more,” Biden said.

“And all this talk about how I’m angry at all those people who said I should step down, it’s not true.”

Biden said that picking Harris, 59, as his running mate in 2020 was “the best decision I made in my whole career” — and claimed that “democracy must be preserved” by electing her.

Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff, along with Biden’s family, including scandal-plagued first son Hunter Biden, joined him on stage when he concluded — in a scene that resembled a nomination acceptance celebration.

“Let me ask you, are you ready to vote for freedom? Are we ready to fight for democracy and for America? Let me ask you, are you ready to elect Kamala Harris and Tim Walz?” Biden implored the thousands of Democrats, who began to trickle out before he had even finished speaking.

Biden mangled his words when discussing the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.

“The decision overturning Roe v. Wade, that you heard earlier tonight, the United States Supreme Court majority wrote the following: Quote, women are not without electrical, are not, not allowed, are not without electoral or political power,” he said.

Biden was set to speak at 9:50 p.m. local time, but his speaking time was delayed by verbose remarks by his warm-up speakers, including Hillary Clinton and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) — who gushed over Biden’s tenure after forcing him to step aside.

The delay meant the president was pushed out of prime time.

Biden was set to speak at 9:50 p.m. local time, but his speaking time was delayed by verbose remarks by his warm-up speakers, including Hillary Clinton and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) — who gushed over Biden’s tenure after forcing him to step aside.

Biden ended up speaking at 10:27 p.m. local time — 11:27 p.m. Eastern — limiting the number of live viewers. About half of Americans live in the Eastern time zone.

He wrapped up well after midnight in New York.

A Biden aide told Axios: “This is awful. He literally set up a campaign and handed it over to them — do they have to cut him out of prime time?”

The outgoing chief executive showed few signs of the perceived cognitive decline that led to his retirement, but at one point admitted, “I’m so damn old” — and in a slight slip, claimed, “I wrote a peace treaty for Gaza” in reference to a troubled cease-fire plan.

He said he began his political career appearing too young and ended it seeming “too old to stay as president” in a rueful note.

“Those protesters out in the street have a point, a lot of innocent people are being killed on both sides,” Biden said of anti-Israel demonstrators outside the gates, who had furiously dubbed him “Genocide Joe.”

Biden tried to share credit for his accomplishments with Harris, while also saying at one point “we both know we have more to do, but we’re moving in the right direction.”