Joe Biden
United States President Joe Biden says part of his motivation to run for a second term in 2024 is to prevent the return of Donald Trump, his predecessor.
Biden made the comment on Tuesday during a fundraising event for his campaigns next year at a private home outside Boston.
“If Trump wasn’t running, I’m not sure I’d be running. We cannot let him win,” the president said.
Although Biden’s remarks are regarded as the first time he has pinned his aspirations for a second term squarely on opposing Trump’s comeback bid, he had earlier tackled the former president during one of his fundraising events.
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“Trump’s not even hiding the ball anymore. He’s telling us what he’s going to do. He’s making no bones about it,” Biden had told donors.
Later on Tuesday, Trump appeared at a televised Fox News town hall in Iowa and affirmed Biden’s comments.
Sean Hannity, the host, asked: “You are promising America tonight, you would never abuse power as retribution against anybody?
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“Except for day one,” Trump replied.
“I want to close the border and I want to drill, drill, drill.”
Earlier in the interview, Hannity asked the former president if he “in any way” had “any plans whatsoever, if re-elected president, to abuse power, to break the law to use the government to go after people”.
Trump also said he did not think Biden would “make it physically” through the gruelling campaign ahead, adding that his 2020 rival’s mental state is “possibly equally as bad or even worse” than his physical state.
Biden who turned 81 years last month is the oldest US president in history – a title previously held by Trump when he turned 71 in 2017 while in office.
Trump faces four criminal cases and is the front-runner in the Republican race while Biden, as the incumbent president, is the presumptive Democratic nominee.
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