Biden says he WILL run for president again in 2024 - at the age of 81 - ending speculation he would only serve one term
Joe Biden said on Thursday that he plans to run for reelection in 2024 and he has 'no idea' if he will be running against Donald Trump while ending speculation he would only be a one-term president.
Biden, 78, also said that if he does run in 2024 he 'would fully expect' that Vice President Kamala Harris would be on the ticket, saying: 'She's doing a great job, she's a great partner.'
He did however leave open the possibility of stepping aside after one term, as he made the comments just two months into his presidency.
'My plan is to run for reelection. That's my expectation,' Biden told reporters in a wide-ranging news conference, the first of his presidency.
US President Joe Biden, 78, says his 'expectation' is to run for a second term in 2024, but also noted that he is a strong believer in fate
Biden said he has 'no idea' if he will be running against Donald Trump while ending speculation he would only be a one-term president
Biden, 78, also said that if he does run in 2024 he 'would fully expect' that Vice President Kamala Harris, left, would be on the ticket
Biden, who would be 81 in 2024, later pushed back against a reporter's suggestion that his 2024 plans were definite.
'I said, 'That is my expectation',' Biden said. 'I'm a great respecter of fate. I've never been able to plan four-and-a-half, three-and-a-half years ahead for certain.'
Biden also shrugged off whether he believed 2024 would be a rematch with former president Donald Trump, saying he had 'no idea' whether his predecessor would run.
'I don't even think about it. I have no idea,' Biden said, suggesting that Trump may not even be part of the Republican Party.
Trump took steps to start his own re-election campaign early on in 2017 shortly after taking office. He has teased another run, but he would be 78 himself at the beginning of the next president's term.
It is unusual to focus on running for re-election so early in a presidential term, but Biden's age and the possibility that Trump may run again have created early speculation about the 2024 presidential field.
Biden won the November election with record turnout that helped him beat Trump by more than seven million votes.
It may seem early, but several Republican presidential prospects are already jockeying for position ahead of the GOP's 2024 nomination fight.
On Friday, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo plans to deliver a speech in Iowa, which traditionally holds the nation's first presidential primary contest.
With a Democrat in the White House, there has been virtually no jockeying on the Democratic side so far.
Harris would be the most likely successor should Biden step aside, but she would probably face competition. So soon after taking office, however, Harris' allies have taken no steps to prepare for a presidential bid of her own.
Privately, many Democrats believe Biden will not seek a second term. But publicly, there's few willing to question his intentions.
'He's starting out by so far successfully improving our pandemic response both from a health perspective and economic perspective, which lays the groundwork for a successful term and reelection strategy,' said Democratic strategist Josh Schwerin. 'He's running.'
In his first extended grilling by reporters since taking office on January 20, the 78-year-old president faced questions on topics from immigration and North Korea to whether he would support an end to the filibuster blocking tactic in the US Senate.
The Democratic president also attacked Republican efforts to limit voting, describing the actions in dozens of states that would make it more difficult for millions of people to cast ballots as 'sick' and 'un-American.'
Republican lawmakers in several states have since begun drafting a series of changes to election law that would restrict voting, in moves that would likely hurt Democrats more than Republicans.
Democrats have branded the effort as the most direct assault on American democracy since the Jim Crow era, when state and local governments passed laws that legalized racial segregation.
During a question-and-answer session, Biden swatted aside concerns that such moves to curtail voting rights could cause his party to lose control of the House and Senate in the 2022 midterm elections.
'What I'm worried about is how un-American this whole initiative is. It's sick,' Biden said.
'Deciding that you're going to end voting at five o'clock, when working people are just getting off work? Deciding that there will be no absentee ballots under the most rigid circumstances?' Biden said, citing examples of the proposed changes.
'The Republican voters I know find this despicable,' he said, adding he would 'do everything in my power... to keep that from becoming the law.'
