President Joe Biden said he may have skipped mounting a 2024 re-election bid if he were not facing Donald Trump because the Republican poses a unique threat to the US.
“If Trump wasn’t running, I’m not sure I’d be running,” Biden said at a fundraising event for his 2024 campaign outside Boston. “We cannot let him win.”
Biden’s striking self-assessment comes as even staunch Democratic voters express concerns about the president’s age. The Democrat turned 81 years old last month and is already the eldest Oval Office occupant in history.
“Somebody gave him a talking point they thought would sound good,” Trump, who was president from 2017 to 2021, said at a Fox News town hall on Tuesday.
Biden, seeking a second four-year term in next year’s election, later told reporters at the White House that he would not drop out of the race.
“No, not now,” Biden said when asked if he would consider stepping aside if Trump, 77, stopped seeking his own second term. “Look, he is running, and I have to run.”
Asked if he would have run were Trump not in the race, Biden said, “I expect so.”
During his 2020 presidential campaign, Biden often mentioned that his decision to run was due in part to then-President Trump’s handling of issues, including a 2017 white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Now, Biden faces limited competition for his party’s nomination and is again positioning Trump as a danger to democracy itself.
Donald Trump said on Tuesday that he will not become a dictator if he becomes US president again except “on day one”, after warnings from Democrats and some Republicans that America was in danger of becoming an autocracy if he wins the 2024 election.
Republican presidential candidate Trump had to be asked twice during a televised town hall event in Iowa to deny that he would abuse power to seek revenge on political opponents if re-elected to the White House.
“No. No. Other than day one,” Trump said when asked to deny he would become a “dictator” if he wins the November election.
Trump said on the “day one” he referred to, he would use his presidential powers to close the southern border with Mexico and expand oil drilling.
Trump, seeking a second White House term in a likely election rematch with Democratic President Joe Biden, has frequently promised “retribution” on political opponents if he gains power again. Reuters
