Biden ‘intends’ to run again in 2024


US President Joe Biden said on Friday that while he hasn’t made a formal decision on whether to run for re-election in 2024, it is his “intention” to do so.

“The reason why I don’t formally judge whether to run or not, once I make that judgment, a whole series of regulations come into effect and I have to be – I consider myself a candidate from that point on. I haven’t made that formal decision, but it’s my intention — my intention to run again. And we have time to make that decision,” Biden told MSNBC’s Jonathan Capehart in an interview with Delaware State University in Dover.

The question of Biden’s political future will be front and center for Democrats after November’s midterm elections, in which the party is battling to retain control of Congress. Already, the president’s responses to whether he will mount another bid for the White House have injected questions into the developing 2024 race.

Last month, Biden said it was “far too soon” to decide whether he would run for president in 2024, opening the door to the possibility of not seeking another term.

At 79, Biden is already the oldest president in American history and, as CNN has previously reported, his public agenda has already led to questions about the scope of any campaign he would engage in. if he showed up.

On Friday, the president said first lady Dr. Jill Biden thinks the work they are doing is “very important.”

“Dr. Biden thinks that – my wife – thinks that I – that we are – that we’re doing something very important, and that I shouldn’t walk away from it,” Biden said.

Asked what his late son Beau Biden would say to people who think the president is too old to run, Biden replied, “It’s not so much [what] he said to these people. What he would say to me in my opinion. The only reason to get involved in public life is to be able to improve the lives of others. And depending on who the opponent is, if he has a vision that’s the opposite of what I believe democracy and I believe is good for average Americans, then his argument was, dad, you have an obligation to do something.”

In the high-profile interview, Biden also vowed to use his veto to protect reproductive rights if Republicans take control of Congress midterm and pass laws banning abortion nationwide.

Asked how he would “protect women,” Biden said he would “veto” anything Republicans propose to restrict access to the process.

“For them to ban Roe, to ban a woman’s right to make a choice with her doctor, not to make exceptions for rape, incest, etc., and to put it through the Congress to make it the law of the land, the president has to sign it. I will veto it,” Biden said of Roe v. Wade, who had guaranteed a federal constitutional right to abortion until the Supreme Court overturned the decision in June.

It comes after the president sought to rally his party’s voters this week by promising to sign legislation codifying abortion rights in January if voters elect more Democrats to ensure such legislation passes. .

The president’s wish echoed remarks earlier this week when he raised the prospect of a Republican-controlled Congress passing a bill banning abortion nationwide: “If such a bill was adopted in the next few years, I will veto it.”

On the economy and inflation, the president brushed off polls showing the majority of voters disapproving of the direction of the economy, saying “a lot of what we’ve done and passed hasn’t caught on yet. effect”.

He argued that the GOP had no plan to address Americans’ economic concerns, saying, “They have no platform but to tear down what I was able to do, we were able to do that. . And I don’t know what they’re for.”

Biden also doubled down on his criticism of recent comments by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy questioning the future of US aid to Ukraine.

“I can understand someone having this view that is uninformed, and believe it, because it costs so much money to help them,” Biden said on Friday. “But there’s so much more than the Ukrainians. It’s about NATO, Western Europe. It’s about making sure that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin is unable to succeed in a way that he uses brutality in his activities.”