President Joe Biden affirmed Wednesday that he intends to run again in 2024, and that former President Donald Trump running would only solidify that plan.
“Yes,” he said on ABC when asked if he planned to run. “But look, I’m a great respecter of fate. 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.”
Host David Muir asked if that’d still be his stance with Trump as the Republican nominee.
“You’re trying to tempt me now,” Biden said, chuckling. “Sure. Why would I not run against Donald Trump if he was the nominee? That’d increase the prospect of running.”
Speculation about Biden’s reelection plans has run rampant after he became the oldest person to ever assume the presidency at 78. He’s now 79. Trump is 75.
Vice President Kamala Harris is inevitably mentioned in discussions of 2024 as Biden’s most obvious replacement should he not run, though she brushed off questions about it in an interview last week.
“We do not talk about nor have we talked about re-election, because we haven’t completed our first year and we’re in the middle of a pandemic,” she said.
Though the midterms are still about a year out, some other ambitious hopefuls are already contemplating throwing their hats into the presidential ring. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), for one, thinks history is on his side.
“There’s a reason historically that the runner-up is almost always the next nominee,” Cruz said, noting that he “placed second” in the 2016 GOP primaries. “That’s been true going back to Nixon or Reagan, or McCain or Romney. That’s played out repeatedly.”
