US President Joe Biden addresses media representatives during a press conference at NATO Headquarters in Brussels on March 24, 2022.
Brendan Smialowski | AFP | Getty Images
President Joe Biden said Thursday that he would consider himself “very fortunate” if former President Donald Trump runs against him for a second time in the 2024 election for the White House.
Biden’s swaggering remark comes as the Democrat faces low public approval ratings — and as Trump has signaled he likely will seek the Republican presidential nomination in 2024.
“In the next election I’d be very fortunate if I had that same man running against me,” Biden said at a news conference from NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, where he and other leaders of the alliance’s countries discussed responses to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Biden defeated Trump by more than 4 percentage points in the popular vote, and by 74 Electoral College votes, in the 2020 election.
Trump, while winning the Electoral College by 77 votes in the 2016 election, lost the popular vote by 2 percentage points to Democrat Hillary Clinton.
Biden’s comment on Trump came in response to a reporter at the NATO event, who noted, “There are widespread concerns in Europe that a figure like your predecessor might get elected president again.”
The journalist then asked if there were “any steps, anything you’re trying to do, and NATO is trying to do” to prevent Trump from reversing the alliance’s initiatives.
Biden answered that he had “no intention” to run for president after leaving office as vice president in 2017, but changed his mind later that year when he saw racists demonstrating at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, “carrying torches and carrying Nazi banners.”
“And the gentleman you mentioned was asked what he thought and he said there are very good people on both sides,” Biden said.
“And that’s when I decided I wasn’t going to be quiet,” he said.
The president later noted that when he sat down at a meeting with fellow NATO leaders Thursday, “I said, ‘America’s back.'”
“And one of of my counterparts, a head of state, said, ‘For how long?'” Biden said.
“So I don’t criticize you for asking that question” about Trump running again, Biden told the reporter.
Trump has falsely claimed for more than a year that he, and not Biden, won the 2020 election. Trump and his allies argue that Biden’s victory was based on ballot fraud.
Courts dismissed dozens of lawsuits brought by Trump and his allies that disputed the 2020 election results. The House later impeached him for incitement of insurrection after supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol while Congress counted Biden’s victory on Jan. 6, 2021. The Senate acquitted Trump.
Trump has repeated false election claims as he suggests he could run for the White House again.
“We’ve already won two presidential elections,” Trump said two weeks ago at a speech to Republican donors in New Orleans.
“And now I feel obligated that we have to really look strongly at doing it again,” Trump said.
He added: “We are looking at it very, very strongly. We have to do it. We have to do it.”