(Julianna Frieman, Headline USA) Outgoing President Joe Biden implied in an interview published Wednesday that he would have handed the presidency to Vice President Kamala Harris in the middle of his second term if the Democrats refrained from forcing him off the 2024 ticket.
Biden told USA TODAY that he could have defeated President-elect Donald Trump if he had stayed in the race beyond July 21, 2024—but expressed uncertainty about his ability to be president at age 85.
Read what Joe Biden said during his exclusive interview with USA TODAY: Transcript https://t.co/7wZBSnQHt4
— USA TODAY (@USATODAY) January 8, 2025
“It’s presumptuous to say that, but I think yes, based on the polling,” the 82-year-old Democrat told the outlet of battling Trump at the ballot box following Harris’s historic loss of the popular vote, Electoral College and all seven battleground states.
Biden appeared to acknowledge his cognitive decline in aging as he admitted to USA TODAY’s Washington Bureau chief Susan Page that he does not know if he would be fit for office in three years.
USA TODAY Washington Bureau Chief @SusanPage reveals what President Biden told her when asked about his decision to pardon his son, Hunter, during an exclusive interview with USA TODAY. #usatspecialproj https://t.co/teGJafEEq8 pic.twitter.com/wLbU8kcyMI
— USA TODAY (@USATODAY) January 8, 2025
The lame duck president, who Democrats pressured to back out of his reelection bid after a June 2024 debate that made mental fitness concerns indisputable, said, “Who the Hell knows” if he would be able to perform his duties as president at age 85 or 86.
“I don’t know,” Biden said, mentioned he had “no intention” of running for president after his son, Beau, died. “And then when Trump was running again for reelection, I really thought I had the best chance of beating him.”
He continued his comment by saying he has no idea where he would be in a couple years from now.
“But I also wasn’t looking to be president when I was 85 years old, 86 years old. And so I did talk about passing the baton,” he continued. “But I don’t know. Who the hell knows? So far, so good. But who knows what I’m going to be when I’m 86 years old?”
Additionally, Biden opened up about his Nov. 13 post-election White House meeting with Trump. He said Trump was warned not to “settle scores” upon taking office, a plea the Republican “didn’t reinforce.”
BREAKING: President-elect Donald Trump meets with President Joe Biden in the White House:
BIDEN: “I look forward to having a smooth transition…welcome.”
TRUMP: “Politics is tough, and in many cases not a very nice world, but it is a nice world today.” pic.twitter.com/x4oQDsaG9K
— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) November 13, 2024
Biden claimed Trump praised some of his policies during their two-hour talk.
“He was very complimentary about some of the economic things I had done,” Biden, who many Americans assume has a form of dementia, claimed. “And he talked about—he thought I was leaving with a good record.”
Julianna Frieman is a freelance writer published by the Daily Caller, Headline USA, The Federalist, and the American Spectator. Follow her on Twitter at @JuliannaFrieman.
