Joe Biden Announces Bid for Re-Election as U.S. President, Vows to Fight Against MAGA Extremists and Protect American Democracy
The U.S. president formally announced that he is running for a second term, presenting himself as the Democrat best positioned to prevent Donald Trump from returning to the White House.
WASHINGTON – U.S. President Joe Biden announced he will seek a second four-year term in a video posted online Tuesday morning urging voters to let him “finish this job” and opening up the possibility of a rematch with former President Donald Trump.
In the three-minute, four-second video, Biden that he has spent his first years in office fighting for democracy and freedom. And he warns that “MAGA extremists” across the country – to use the acronym for Trump’s slogan, “Make America Great Again” – threaten those freedoms.
“When I ran for president four years ago, I said we were in a battle for the soul of America. And so we’re still going,” Biden says in the video, later adding, “That’s why I’m running for re-election.”
Biden’s formal declaration of candidacy comes four years to the day after the day he announced he would seek the presidency in 2019, declaring at the time that it was crucial to prevent Trump from winning a second term.
Biden triumphed in 2020. But if Trump becomes the Republican nominee – he is now the favorite – Biden’s legacy will be determined by whether he will be able to once again block Trump’s return to power.
Here’s more you should know:
Biden will speak to union workers at 12:30 p.m. ET in Washington about plans to help manufacturing and the middle class. The event nods to his 2020 announcement, when he spoke at a Pittsburgh union hall after posting a campaign launch video online.
- Neither Biden’s agenda nor his speech is likely to change immediately. Aides said he was expected to keep the same themes he has focused on for months: claiming credit for an improving economy and attacking Republicans on issues related to abortion, tax cuts, guns and bigotry. One thing that will begin quickly is fundraising. The president’s top donors have been invited to a summit in Washington on Friday to begin fundraising.
- Biden has all but cleared the Democratic presidential race despite doubts about his age – at 80, he is already the oldest U.S. president in history – and lingering misgivings among a large number of his party’s voters. Although polls repeatedly show that Democrats yearn for a new face in 2024, they don’t know who it would be.
- Biden picked Julie Chavez Rodriguez, a top aide and the highest-ranking Latina in the White House, to be his campaign manager. Quentin Fulks, who ran the 2022 campaign for Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia, will be his deputy. But other members of Biden’s close circle, including Jen O’Malley Dillon, his former campaign manager, and Anita Dunn, his communications guru, will remain in the White House for now.
- The president does not mention Trump by name in the video. But the undercurrent is clear: it begins with scenes from the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6. As Biden says the words “MAGA extremists,” the screen shows an image of Trump with his arm over the shoulder of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, another potential Republican rival. Although Biden’s team is betting that his opponent will likely be Trump, the president has already begun to lambast all Republicans.