(Headline USA) President Joe Biden reportedly told a group of Democratic donors on Tuesday that he would not be running for reelection if it weren’t for former President Donald Trump.
“If Trump wasn’t running, I’m not sure I’d be running,” the 81-year-old said. “But we cannot let him win.”
The comment from Biden comes as concerns grow within the Democratic Party about his age and low poll numbers ahead of the 2024 election.
Several recent polls have found Biden losing to Trump in key swing states as a majority of voters admit Biden’s mental acuity is a primary concern of theirs. The RealClearPolitics average of recent national polls shows Trump with 46.7% national support compared to Biden at 44.7%.
Biden has also privately admitted that he often feels “tired,” according to author Franklin Foer.
And although Biden has insisted over the past two years that he would run for reelection, some Democrats have been quick to remind him that he signaled during the 2020 campaign that he would only serve one term if elected.
“If Biden is elected, he’s going to be 82 years old in four years and he won’t be running for reelection,” an adviser to the Biden campaign said at the time. “He’s going into this thinking, ‘I want to find a running mate I can turn things over to after four years, but if that’s not possible or doesn’t happen then I’ll run for reelection.’”
The problem for Biden now is that his running mate, Vice President Kamala Harris, is even more unpopular than he is.
The weakness of the Biden–Harris ticket led Trump to predict this week that Democrats will end up nominating someone else to head their ticket before the 2024 deadline.
“I personally don’t think he makes it,” Trump said during a Fox News townhall on Tuesday. “I watched him at the beach. He wasn’t able to lift a beach chair which is meant for children to lift … and mentally I would say he’s possibly equally as bad and maybe worse.”
