For months now, the official White House position on Joe Biden’s plans for 2024 is that he intends to run for reelection, even though most Americans don’t expect him to, and nearly two-thirds don’t want him to.
But on Wednesday, Biden added a caveat to that promise. When ABC News anchor David Muir asked whether he intends to seek reelection in 2024, Biden said he would… but only if he was in good health.
“Yes, but look, I’m a great respecter of fate,” Biden replied. “Fate has intervened in my life many, many times. If I’m in the health I’m in now—if I’m in good health—then, in fact, I would run again.”
It is not clear what Biden meant by being in good health. White House physician Kevin O’Connor claims Biden is physically fit for duty; however, a cognitive test was not performed. This was a rather curious omission considering that a plurality of voters doesn’t believe Biden is mentally fit to be president, according to a recent poll from Politico.
Biden conceding that health might prevent him from running in 2024 comes on the heels of Kamala Harris not confirming to the Wall Street Journal that Joe Biden plans to run in 2024 and that they haven’t discussed the next election—forcing the White House to clarify.
“I can’t speak to a conversation that the vice president and the president have,” Principal Deputy Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in response to a question about Harris’s comments to the Wall Street Journal. “I could only say what and reiterate what [Press Secretary Jen Psaki] has said and what the President has said himself: That he is planning to run for reelection in 2024.”
“I’ll be very honest: I don’t think about it, nor have we talked about it,” she said. “I’m not going to talk about our conversations, but I will tell you this without any ambiguity: We do not talk about nor have we talked about reelection because we haven’t completed our first year and we’re in the middle of a pandemic.”
Muir also asked if he’d run again in 2024 if Trump runs.
“You’re trying to tempt me now?” Biden joked. “Sure. Why would I not run against Donald Trump if he were the nominee? That would increase the prospect of running.”
Polls show that Donald Trump would beat Joe Biden in a hypothetical 2024 matchup.
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