Home TRENDING BIDEN, 80, ANNOUNCES 2024 PRESIDENTIAL BID: “COMPLETE THIS TASK”

BIDEN, 80, ANNOUNCES 2024 PRESIDENTIAL BID: “COMPLETE THIS TASK”

Biden declares his official bid for president in 2024, saying, "Let's finish this job."

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Biden declares his official bid for president in 2024, saying, “Let’s finish this job.”
The US President made his statement in a polished video that his new campaign team released.

US President Joe Biden hosts the 2023 Teacher of the Year event at the White House in Washington, US, April 24, 2023. PHOTO: REUTERS

President Joe Biden announced on Tuesday that he will run for re-election in 2024. This decision will determine whether or not Americans are willing to give the 80-year-old Democrat, who is already the oldest US president in history, another four years in office.

In a professionally made video released by his new campaign team, Biden made his announcement and stated that it is his responsibility to defend American democracy. Images from the attack on the US Capitol by supporters of former President Donald Trump on January 6, 2021, are shown at the beginning.

We are still engaged in a struggle for America’s soul, Biden claimed in his 2004 presidential campaign. “Now is not the time for complacency. I’m running for reelection because of this.

“Let’s complete this task. I’m confident we can, he said.

Biden called the Republican platforms “threats to American freedom” and vowed to fight efforts to restrict access to healthcare for women, cut Social Security, and outlaw books, all the while denouncing “MAGA extremists.” MAGA stands for Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign slogan; Biden’s Republican opponent in the November 2024 election may very well be him.

After the SVB collapse, Biden promises stronger bank regulations.

Although a 40-year high in inflation has marred his economic record, in the two years since he succeeded Trump, Biden has secured congressional approval for billions of dollars in federal funding to combat the Covid-19 pandemic and for new infrastructure. He has also presided over the lowest levels of unemployment since 1969.

For the Democratic Party, which faces a difficult electoral landscape to hold the Senate in 2024 and is currently the minority in the House of Representatives, Biden’s age makes his re-election campaign a historic and dangerous gamble.

According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on April 19, only 39% of Americans approve of Biden, and many Americans have serious reservations about his age. By the end of a potential second term, he would be 86, living nearly ten years longer than the typical US male.

Biden, who does not consume alcohol and exercises five times per week, was deemed “fit for duty” by doctors following an examination in February. According to the White House, his resume demonstrates that he is mentally capable of handling the demands of the job.

Vice President Kamala Harris will be Biden’s running mate in the 2024 election.

Another Trump matchup?

Following Trump’s declaration in November that he would run for re-election after losing the 2020 election to Biden, Biden entered the race.

In a statement about Biden’s candidacy, Trump criticised the president over his record on immigration, inflation, and the US pullout from Afghanistan.

“American families are being decimated by the worst inflation in half a century. Banks are failing,” Trump said on his social media platform. “We have surrendered our energy independence, just like we surrendered in Afghanistan,” he said.

Biden, running as an incumbent, is unlikely to face much competition from inside his party. No senior Democrats have shown signs of challenging him and he has compiled a board of rising-star Democrats to advise his campaign, including governors JB Pritzker of Illinois and Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania.

Potential and declared Republican presidential candidates have begun framing the 2024 election around cutting back government spending amid still-high inflation, restricting abortion, crime in Democratic-run cities and illegal immigration.

The two leading Republican contenders, Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, want to limit the access of trans children to sports teams and gender-affirming medical care, and restrict how schools teach LGBTQ+ issues and America’s history of slavery and racial disparities.

Trump goes on trial in a civil lawsuit on Tuesday over writer E.Jean Carroll’s accusation that he raped her in a department store dressing room in the mid-1990s.

The former president, who is not required to attend the trial, has denied raping Carroll in an October 2022 post on his Truth Social platform.

Not a 2020 recap

Biden ran a mostly virtual campaign to defeat Trump in the 2020 election as Covid raged, saying he sought to unify the country, rebuild the economy, and better control the virus.

With pandemic restrictions mostly over in the United States, the 2024 race is likely to be a much different, more physical affair.

After losing by 7 million votes to Biden in 2020, Trump refused to concede defeat, falsely claiming that there had been widespread electoral fraud.

His followers stormed the US Capitol building in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, in support of his claims but they failed to block certification by Congress of Biden’s election.

Biden’s campaign video implies he plans to remind voters of these efforts, while lauding his handling of the economic recovery from the 2008 depression, especially the resilience of the labour market.

Other Biden topics may include strong US support for Ukraine in its struggle against Russia and what the White House believes are Republican ambitions to dismantle government healthcare and programs popular with elderly voters.

This summer, Biden is daring Republicans to find common ground on raising the US debt ceiling before the country slips into default in a few of months.

Fifty-nine percent of Democrats questioned by Reuters/Ipsos in February believed the term “Joe Biden is too old to work in government” describes the president.

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