BIDEN ‘NOT SURE’ HE’D BE RUNNING IF TRUMP WERE NOT IN RACE
BOSTON — President Joe Biden told campaign donors Tuesday that he wasn’t sure he’d be running for reelection if Donald Trump wasn’t also in the race, warning that democracy is “more at risk in 2024” and that the former president and his allies are out to “destroy” democratic institutions.
The president was using a trio of fundraisers to caution against what might happen should his predecessor again claim control of the White House, noting Trump has described himself as his supporters’ “retribution” and has vowed to root out “vermin” in the country.
“We’ve got to get it done, not because of me . ... If Trump wasn’t running I’m not sure I’d be running. We cannot let him win,” Biden said, hitting the last words for emphasis.
Biden’s forceful rhetoric came as Trump, the current GOP front-runner who tried to overturn the 2020 election he lost and is facing criminal charges connected to those efforts, attempted over the weekend to turn the tables by calling Biden the “destroyer of American democracy.”
Biden, who said he is not alone in sounding the alarm over Trump, noted that Trump is the “only losing candidate” in U.S. history to not accept the results. Biden also said that on Jan. 6, 2021, as Trump supporters violently stormed the U.S. Capitol, Trump sat in his dining room just off the Oval Office, “watching them threaten his own vice president.”
Biden also highlighted recent warnings about Trump from former Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., calling her a “powerful voice.”
“American democracy, I give you my word as a Biden, is at stake,” the president said at the first of three campaign fundraisers in the Boston area. Drawing some laughter from donors, Biden also mused: “He didn’t even show up at my inauguration. I can’t say I was disappointed, but he didn’t even show up.”